"Conversation is imperative if gaps are to be filled, and old age, it is the last gap but one."

"Loonies speak their own language, like educated people."

"If she had only been able to touch him, they might perhaps have pooled their secrets and discovered the reason for hu…"

"Religion. Yes, that's behind all my books. What I am interested in is the relationship between the blundering human b…"

"In my books I have lifted bits from various religions in trying to come to a better understanding; I've made use of r…"

"Why can't a writer use writing as a painter uses paint? I try to. When I wrote The Tree of Man I felt I couldn't writ…"

"The essence of what you have to say you pick up before you're twenty."

"I always like to write three versions of a book. The first is always agony and chaos; no one could understand it. Wit…"

"I have the same idea with all my books: an attempt to come close to the core of reality, the structure of reality, as…"

"Possibly all art flowers more readily in silence. Certainly the state of simplicity and humility is the only desirabl…"