Do Not Cut Lose From Your Longings

I'm A Great Believer In Compromises. I Do Not Believe In Capitulation.

"the State Of The Jews" Was Not A Title Of A Country. It Was A Title Of A Futuristic Novel.

I Don't Think A Novel's Main Donation, Main Gift, Is The Document. The Document Is There, But A Novel Goes Beyond Documentation. It Goes Into Opening A New Vista, Opening A New Perspective, Showing Familiar Things In An Unfamiliar Way, And Making The Reader Reconsider The Documentary Facts Which He Or She May Have Known Before.

I'm Not Sure I'm Happy With Words Such As "task" Or "role" When They Are Attached To Literature. I Prefer To Talk About The Gift Of Literature Rather Than Its Role Or Task. You Know, Gynecology Has A Role; Sex Is A Gift. And Literature Is Not About Sending Messages.

When I Was Little, My Ambition Was To Grow Up To Be A Book. Not A Writer. People Can Be Killed Like Ants. Writers Are Not Hard To Kill Either. But Not Books: However Systematically You Try To Destroy Them, There Is Always A Chance That A Copy Will Survive And Continue To Enjoy A Shelf-life In Some Corner On An Out-of-the-way Library Somehwere In Reykjavik, Valladolid Or Vancouver.