Ah, come now. I look like an angel, but I'm not. The old rules of nature encompass many creatures like me. We're beautiful like the diamond-backed snake, or the striped tiger, yet we're merciless killers

For me, places have a tremendous impact. I fall in love with places. All of life seems different in different places.

Advice to a new writer: There are no rules in this profession. Do what is good for you. Read books and watch films that stimulate your writing. In your writing, go where the pain is; go where the pleasure is; go where the excitement is. Believe in your own original approach, voice, characters, story. Ignore critics. Have nerve. Be stubborn.

I was in the black silence of a medieval street, and blindly I followed its sharp turns, comforted by the height of its narrow tenements, which seemed at any moment capable of falling together, closing this alleyway under indifferent stars like a seam.

In a way he made me think of a child doll, with briliant faintly red-brown glass eyes - a doll that had been found in an attic. I wanted to polish him with kisses, clean him up, make him evevn more radiant than he was. "That's what you always want," he said softly... "When you found me under Les Innocents," he said, "you wanted to bathe me with perfume and dress me in velvevt with great embroidered sleeves." "Yes," I said, "and comb your hair, your beautiful russet hair." My tone was angry. "You look good to me, you damnable little devil, good to embrace and good to love.

I have lived lies. I have done it again and again. I live lies because I cannot endure the weakness of anger, and I cannot admit the irrationality of love.-Marius

Artists are meant to be madmen, to disturb and shock us.