I have never felt the need to trash talk, and I'm not going to start now! I just quietly do my job and then quietly step into the ring to showcase what I can do. And one thing is for sure: I'm going to leave it all in the ring. I've always had such a will to win, and I always give my heart and my soul, so I don't need to change who I am.

Many people talk about a willingness to have failures. I hate failures. I don't think you should strike to make failures. I think it's OK to make mistakes – but by the time they become real failures, you probably should have discovered them much earlier.

In order to grasp every opportunity, you cannot — you must not — decide your "career path" in advance. Don't have a job fixed in your sights and work backwards — it can be the road to disappointment because you risk passing up opportunities that might take you "off-course."

I held out for participation in the 1984 election the dictatorship called, even if I knew it would be rigged. I was warned by the lawyers of the opposition that I ran the grave risk of legitimizing the forgone results of elections that were clearly going to be fraudulent. But I was not fighting for lawyers, but for the people in whose intelligence I had implicit faith. By the exercise of democracy, even in a dictatorship, they would be prepared for democracy when it came.

Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

Violent death. Death generally.

Narcissism, solipsism.

Reading quietly, in high grass, among loved ones (who are also quietly reading). Followed by a boozy lunch.

Oblivious to the event or on the brink of a genuine religious conversion.

I feel almost certain I don't know them. It would be one of these types who dedicate their lives to the welfare of others, whereas the people I tend to know are people making stories out of the dramas of themselves.