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.

...my boredom might be described as a malady affecting external objects and consisting of a withering process; an almost instantaneous loss of vitality--just as though one saw a flower change in a few seconds from a bud to decay and dust.

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

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

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

Because the world to-day is so constructed that no one can do what he would like to do, and he is forced, instead, to do what others wish him to do. Because the question of money always intrudes—into what we do, into what we are, into what we wish to become, into our work, into our highest aspirations, even into our relations with the people we love!

I like to compare my method with that of painters centuries ago, proceeding from layer to layer.