It is the custom when praising a Russian writer to do so at the expense of all other Russian writers.
[Lev] Tolstoy is not a boy-writer. He's a grown-up. And [Fedor] Doestoeivski is not a boy-writer.
There are distinctions between Indian and Pakistani writers.
Norman Mailer thinks William Burroughs is a genius, which I think is ludicrous beyond words. I don't think William Burroughs has an ounce of talent.
A writer is someone who has a one-man tent in the desert and occasionally he sees the footprint of an other writer - in the form of a review or something.
I was very pleased, obviously, to have outsold such great writers. But I'm not insane - I do realize that I am a popular writer who people buy to take on vacation.
I'm not the slowest writer that you know.
I'm the biggest Chekov fan - there's something that he does that not many other writers do.
