"A writer’s life is a highly vulnerable, almost naked activity. We don’t have to weep about that. The writer makes his choice and is stuck with it."

"I think that literature is a way of understanding the world, and understanding ourselves."

"The idea that some thoughts are too dangerous to be thought is a dangerous idea for freedom."

"The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it."

"It is, after all, the right of the people to be absolutely idiotic if they wish."