To make a love story you need a couple of young people but to reflect on the nature of love you're better off with old ones. That is a fact of life and literature - and of the novel ever since it fell in love with love in the 18th century.

It is the nature of the artist to mind excessively what is said about him. Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.

Pop changes week to week month to month. But great music is like literature.

Develop interest in life as you see it in people things literature music - the world is so rich simply throbbing with rich treasures beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.

When you kill somebody in the movies it matters whereas in literature it can be allegorical.

Well the thing about great fictional characters from literature and the reason that they're constantly turned into characters in movies is that they completely speak to what makes people human.

The novel succeeds on terms exclusive to literature. A good film succeeds on terms exclusive to the cinema. That's why so many bad novels can become good movies like 'Jaws' or 'The Godfather.'

Some people think literature is high culture and that it should only have a small readership. I don't think so... I have to compete with popular culture including TV magazines movies and video games.

Movies are a complicated collision of literature theatre music and all the visual arts.

I get up at an unholy hour in the morning my work day is completed by the time the sun rises. I have a slightly bad back which has made an enormous contribution to American literature.