I was born in the Second World War during the Nazi invasion of my country.

There are some fundamental values it's impossible to be wrong about.

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.

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.

My books are about losers, about people who've lost their way and are engaged in a search.

I claim the right to take a stand once in a while.