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Quotes by Author

"Without Hitler, the State of Israel probably would not exist today. To that extent he was probably the Jews' greatest friend."

"We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones."

"Contrary to what Kafka does, I always like to refer all of my fictions to the level of reality, He, on the other hand, leaves them at an imaginary level."

"For us Africans, literature must serve a purpose: to expose, embarrass, and fight corruption and authoritarianism. It is understandable why the African artist is utilitarian."

"I believe in nothing, everything is sacred. I believe in everything, nothing is sacred."

"I'm a writer first and a woman after."

"I, personally, have found reading a continual support to writing."

"The writer needs to react to his or her own internal universe, to his or her own point of view. If he or she doesn't have a personal point of view, it's impossible to be a creator."

"Everything being a constant carnival, there is no carnival left."

"If a spectator with a philosophical mind, somebody accustomed to reading books, gets the same kind of information in a movie, he might not fully understand it."

"The conclusion you can draw from these characteristics is that you have an uneven development of class activity and an uneven development of class consciousness in the working class."

"Fighting for peace is not the solution,but loving for peace is the solution."

"More than this, even in those white men who professed religion we found much inconsistency of conduct. They spoke much of spiritual things, while seeking only the material."

"The man who does not read books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them."

"This happiness consisted of nothing else but the harmony of the few things around me with my own existence, a feeling of contentment and well-being that needed no changes and no intensification."

"I once knew a house rather like The Land of Smiles - an old house occupied by a varied collection of young people, mainly students. However none of these people were true models for the characters in the book, though their way of life may have been."

"Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks."

"Napoleon had been fighting this army of slaves and free people in Haiti and it depleted his forces. And after the Revolution, when the French were driven out, they stopped and sold this big chunk of North America to the Americans for very little money."

"The native American has been generally despised by his white conquerors for his poverty and simplicity."

"To set their sufferings alongside the sufferings of another people was to compare them (which hell was worse?), demoting Sarajevo's martyrdom to a mere instance."

"It's a responsibility of the writer to get the reader out of the story somehow."

"The hospitality of the wigwam is only limited by the institution of war."

"Everyone can be a leader irrespective of their age, race, creed, nationality or political affiliation. Once you can figure out your talents and optimize them very well, at the right place and at the right time, you are a leader."

"If at first you don't succeed, tweak it before you toss it."

"I have an editor in my head, that's why I can't read Harry Potter, because Rowling is such a lousy writer."

"Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise."

"I'm not terribly happy about rock and roll. Certain rock music is uninspiring, numbing; it makes you feel like an idiot."

"The translator's task is to create, in his or her own language, the same tensions appearing in the original. That's hard!"

"Take the attitude of a student, never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new."

"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us."

"We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise."
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