An intellectual is going to have doubts, for example, about a fundamentalist religious doctrine that admits no doubt, about an imposed political system that allows no doubt, about a perfect aesthetic that has no room for doubt.

In a novel, my feelings and sense of outrage can find a broader means of expression which would be more symbolic and applicable to many European countries.

Perfection spawns doctrines, dictators and totalitarian ideas.

Literature for me isn't a workaday job, but something which involves desires, dreams and fantasy.

The most important basis of any novel is wanting to be someone else, and this means creating a character.

personally I don't trust literature that soothes people's consciences.

A l'intérieur de ce corps vivait l'âme d'une intellectuelle et poète dont personne n'avait le soupçon. Within this body lived the soul of an intellectual and poet, which nobody had suspected.