I'm not a man deeply interested in technology. It eludes me.

The most deeply personal of my works are the non-fiction works, the autobiographical works, because there, I'm talking about myself very directly.

Writing has always had that tactile quality for me. It's a physical experience.

For me, a paragraph in a novel is a bit like a line in a poem. It has its own shape, its own music, its own integrity.

It's extremely difficult to get these jobs because you can't get a job on a ship unless you have seaman's paper's, and you can't get seaman's papers unless you have a job on a ship. There had to be a way to break through the circle, and he was the one who arranged it for me.

I'm a deeply broken person, and broken institutions fascinate me.