It is clear that when you write a story that takes place in the past, you try to show what really happened in those times. But you are always moved by the suspicion that you are also showing something about our contemporary world.
There are more people than you think who want to have a challenging experience, in which they are obliged to reflect about the past.
The United States needed a civil war to unite properly.
The question of manuscript changes is very important for literary criticism, the psychology of creation and other aspects of the study of literature.
The function of memory is not only to preserve, but also to throw away. If you remembered everything from your entire life, you would be sick.
The French, the Italians, the Germans, the Spanish and the English have spent centuries killing each other.
The comic is the perception of the opposite; humor is the feeling of it.
The author may not interpret. But he must tell why and how he wrote his book.
To read a paper book is another experience: you can do it on a ship, on the branch of a tree, on your bed, even if there is a blackout.
From lies to forgeries the step is not so long, and I have written technical essays on the logic of forgeries and on the influence of forgeries on history.
If western culture is shown to be rich, it is because, even before the Enlightenment, it has tried to ‘dissolve’ harmful simplifications through inquiry and the critical mind.
I started to work in television for three or four years, in 1954. There was one channel of television, black and white. But it could be entertaining and educational. During the evening they showed important plays, opera or Shakespeare’s tragedies.
I don’t want to write a novel per year. I know that I need a break of one or two years. So maybe I invent some new, urgent activity so I don’t fall into the trap of starting a new novel.
Every European goes on the streets and sees medieval churches. Not if you live in Indianapolis. The most exciting letters I received were from people in places like that.
I like nicotine because it excites my brain and helps me work.
A transposable aphorism is a malaise of the urge to be witty, or in other words, a maxim that is untroubled by the fact that the opposite of what it says is equally true so long as it appears to be funny.
We are never racist against somebody who is very far away. I don’t know any racism against the Eskimos. To have a racist feeling, there must be an other who is slightly different from us – but is living close to us.
Our most noted satirists are true columnists, and their opinions can be worth more than any well-documented expose.
One can be a great poet and be politically stupid.
I could work in the shower if I had plastic paper.