My mother's side taught me to be a little bit afraid of everything. For a long time, I was quiet and cautious. But shyness makes you notice other people's excruciations and feel for them. I think that made a writer of me.Howard Jacobson
It is literature which for me opened the mysterious and decisive doors of imagination and understanding. To see the way others see. To think the way others think. And above all, to feel.Salman Rushdie
I don't think people cry reading 'Midnight's Children,' but a lot of people seem to cry watching the movie.Salman Rushdie
There's a lot of conflict and darkness inside everybody's family. We all pretend to outsiders that it's not so, but behind locked doors, there are usually high emotions running.Salman Rushdie
One of the cruelest things you can do to another person is pretend you care about them more than you really do.Douglas Coupland
If you write fiction, you have to love your characters. It's like your family. You don't have to like them, but you have to love them.Douglas Coupland
Every human being you see in the course of a day has a problem that's sucking up at least 70 percent of his or her radar.Douglas Coupland
Forgive me my nonsense, as I also forgive the nonsense of those that think they talk sense.Robert Frost
