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That conversation with the taxi driver suddenly made clear to me the essence of the writer's occupation. We write books because our children aren't in...more

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In any case, it seems to me that all over the world people nowadays prefer to judge rather than to understand, to answer rather than to ask, so that t...more

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I understand you, and I shall not attempt to make you change your mind. I am too old to want to improve the world. I have told you what I think, and t...more

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Betrayal means breaking ranks and going off into the unknown. Sabina knew of nothing more magnificent than going off into the unknown.

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For a novelist, a given historic situation is an anthropologic laboratory in which he explores his basic question: What is human existence?

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The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude. In a world built on sacrosanct ...more

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Darling, my darling, don't think that I don't love you or that I didn't love you, but it's precisely because I love you that I couldn't have become wh...more

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He thought: that's certainly how it starts. One day a person puts his legs up on a bench, then night comes and he falls asleep. That's how it happens ...more

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In Irena’s head the alcohol plays a double role: it frees her fantasy, encourages her boldness, makes her sensual, and at the same time it dims her me...more

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When Don Quixote went out into the world, that world turned into a mystery before his eyes. That is the legacy of the first European novel to the enti...more

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Noise has one advantage. It drowns out words. And suddenly he realized that all his life he had done nothing but talk, write, lecture, concoct sentenc...more

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But isn't it true that an author can write only about himself?

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As I have pointed out before, characters are not born like people, of woman; they are born of a situation, a sentence, a metaphor containing in a nuts...more