It's the hardest thing in the world to go on being aware of someone else's pain.

Looking straight at the world is part of your duty as a writer.

The result was I went nowhere.

Fiction should be about moral dilemmas that are so bloody difficult that the author doesn't know the answer. What I hate in fiction is when the author knows better than the characters what they should do.

The way I see it, when you put the uniform on, in effect you sign a contract. And you don't back out of a contract merely because you've changed your mind. You can still speak up for your principles, you can still argue against the ones you're being made to fight for, but in the end you do the job.

Murder is only killing in the wrong place.

Half the world's work is done by hopeless neurotics.

A society that devours its own young deserves no automatic or unquestioning allegiance.

Another person's life, observed from the outside, always has a shape and definition that one's own life lacks.

The sky darkened, the air grew colder, but he didn't mind. It didn't occur to him to move. This was the right place. This was where he had wanted to be.