I thought they would never select an Eastern writer for the Nobel. I was surprised.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I think anyone who gets the Nobel Prize has to be a little bit embarrassed to be picked out when there have been so many people who have contributed.
Nobody really expects a Nobel Prize call.
The truth is that anyone, almost anyone, who receives the Nobel Prize has some indirect knowledge of one sort or another that they may be a candidate.
I'm never going to be in danger of getting the Nobel Prize for literature.
My wife thought I deserved it, but I always thought the Nobel a Western prize.
There is no other prize in any country that carries the prestige that a Nobel bestows.
There can be no better prize for a writer than one awarded by an international book fair.
Nobel was a genuine friend of peace. He even went so far as to believe that he had invented a tool of destruction, dynamite, which would make war so senseless that it would become impossible. He was wrong.
I can only point out a curious fact. Year after year the Nobel Awards bring a moment of happiness not only to the recipients, not only to colleagues and friends of the recipients, but even to strangers.
It is well known that the Nobel Committees bring world opinion to a focus, and that fact still further enhances the prestige attaching to the Prizes.