“Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if they open it and read it, they don't have to like it. And if you read it and you dislike it, you don't have to remain silent about it. You can write to me, you can complain about it, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book. You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or sold, or bought, or read.”

“It's like you're a character in this book that everyone around you is writing, and suddenly you have to say, 'I'm sorry, but this role isn't right for me'. And you have to start writing your own life and doing your own thing.”

“Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. You bring to a novel, anything you read, all your experience of the world. You bring your history and you read it in your own terms.”

“Writing is thinking on paper, or talking to someone on paper. If you can think clearly, or if you can talk to someone about the things you know and care about, you can write - with confidence and enjoyment.”

“or that writing a poem you can read to no one
is like dancing in the dark.”

“Write the book you want to read, the one you cannot find.”

“Werner, nobody will read this book if I don't write bad stuff about you. If I wrote that we get along well together, nobody would buy it. The scum only wants to hear about the dirt, all the time.”

“Read a lot, listen well and deeply, and write a lot. […] If you read good books, when you write, good books will come out of you.”

“If it is permissible to write plays that are not intended to be seen, I should like to see who can prevent me from writing a book no one can read.”

“If you can speak what you will never hear, if you can write what you will never read, you have done rare things.”