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I think writers write for their consciences, they write for their own true audiences, for their souls.

If you are killed because you are a writer, that's the maximum expression of respect, you know.

Every old poem is sacred.

You're trying to write about something that's sacred. You're trying to bring the seriousness of life and death to it, and you're trying to find a way to dramatize it, and you're trying to give language to it, which is inadequate. But it's important to try.

A writer has to live with a sense of honor.

I suppose that writers should, in a way, feel flattered by the censorship laws. They show a primitive fear and dread at the fearful magic of print.

I never wrote for children. I wrote with respect for the audience, which I've maintained all my life. Doesn't mean I couldn't be risque, but I did it smartly, without being vulgar.

I think we have a great deal of mythology around writing. We believe that only a few people can really do it. I wrote a book called 'The Right to Write.' In it, I argued that all of us have the capacity to write. That it's as normal to write as it is to speak.

Writing is not a matter of choice. Writers have to write. It is somehow in their temperament, in the blood, in tradition.