You can't think on purpose about somebody or something. Either you think about them naturally or you don't think at all.

Yes, one uses what one knows, but autobiography means something else. I should never be able to write a real autobiography; I always end by falsifying and fictionalizing—I’m a liar, in fact. That means I’m a novelist, after all. I write about what I know.

You can't think on purpose about somebody or something. Either you think about them naturally or you don't think at all.

This thought strengthened in me my belief that all men, without exception, deserve to be pitied, if only because they are alive.

Every true writer is like a bird; he repeats the same song, the same theme, all his life. For me, this theme as always been revolt.

In life there are no problems, that is, objective and external choices; there is only the life which we do not resolve as a problem but which we live as an experience, whatever the final result may be.

I don't think it's possible to write a good novel around a negative personality.