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.

Loyalty, Signor Molteni, not love. Penelope is loyal to Ulysses but we do not know how far she loved him...and as you know people can sometimes be absolutely loyal without loving. In certain cases, in fact, loyalty is form of vengeance, of black-mail, of recovering one's self-respect. Loyalty, not love.

When you aren't sincere you need to pretend, and by pretending you end up believing yourself; that's the basic principle of every faith.

The novel as we knew it in the nineteenth century was killed off by Proust and Joyce.

When I sit at my table to write, I never know what it's going to be until I'm under way. I trust in inspiration, which sometimes comes and sometimes doesn't. But I don't sit back waiting for it. I work every day.

I do not foresee a time when I shall feel that I have nothing to say.

Dictatorships are one-way streets. Democracy boasts two-way traffic.