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.

An uncertain evil causes anxiety because, at the bottom of one's heart, one goes on hoping till the last moment that it may not be true; a certain evil, on the other hand, instills, for a time, a kind of dreary tranquillity.

Good writers are monotonous, like good composers. They keep trying to perfect the one problem they were born to understand.

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

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

...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.

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