I'm really not responsible for what mental operation people have when they're reading my books other than the ones which are created by literary effects.

You can only give things up once they start to let you down.

Proust is a hero of mine. I read 'A la recherche' in one go, and I'm a very slow reader. It had an astonishing impact, reading it on my own and being my main company. I think Proust is the most intelligent person to ever have written a novel.

It seems people spend the majority of their lives believing they're dying, with the only consolation being that at one point they get to be right.

I'm really not responsible for what mental operation people have when they're reading my books other than the ones which are created by literary effects.

Detachment is what interests me, seeing how people couldn't have been any other way, how they were the product of forces that they had no control over.

Well, the attractive thing about the subject of happiness is that it is notoriously difficult to write.