An actress without talent, forty years old, ate a partridge for dinner, and I felt sorry for the partridge, for it occurred to me that in its life it had been more talented, more sensible, and more honest than the actress.

When you want to touch the reader's heart, try to be colder. It gives their grief as it were, a background, against which it stands out in greater relief.

I don't like being successful; the subjects which sit in my head are annoyed and jealous of what has already been written.

Here I am with you & yet not for a single moment do I forget that there's an unfinished novel waiting for me.

Not everyone knows how to be silent or to leave in good time. It happens that even people of good breeding fail to notice that their presence provokes in the weary or preoccupied host a feeling akin to hatred, and that this feeling is tensely concealed and covered up with lies.

My holy of holies is the human body.

Nothing better forges a bond of love, friendship or respect than common hatred toward something.