I did a lot of my writing as though I was an academic, doing some piece of research as perfectly as possible.

Lists are a form of power.

History, writing, infect after a time a man's sense of himself.

I did a lot of my writing as though I was an academic, doing some piece of research as perfectly as possible.

Everything is surprising, rightly seen.

I don't understand why, in my work, writing is always so dangerous. It's very destructive. People who write books are destroyers.

I don't see much point in doing things for a pure joke. Every now and then you need a joke, but not so much as the people who spend all their lives constructing joke palaces think you do.