I still lack a political, religious and philosophical world view - I change it every month - and so I'll have to limit myself to descriptions of how my heroes love, marry, give birth, die, and how they speak.

Better a debauched canary than a pious wolf.

Nothing lulls and inebriates like money; when you have a lot, the world seems a better place than it actually is.

Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given. But up to now he hasn't been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life's become extinct, the climate's ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day.

If one wants to lead a good life, A HUMAN LIFE, one must work.

I confess I seldom commune with my conscience when I write.

In descriptions of nature one must seize on small details, grouping them so that when the reader closes his eyes he gets a picture.