I had to discover very quickly that class origins cannot be erased, regardless of whether we climb up or down the sociocultural ladder.

The fictional treatment of biographical material - a treatment that for me is essential - is full of traps.

Anonymity lets me concentrate exclusively on writing.

I think our sexuality is all yet to be recounted and that the rich male literary tradition constitutes a huge obstacle.

Existence is this, I thought, a start of joy, a stab of pain, an intense pleasure, veins that pulse under the skin, there is no other truth to tell.

We lie in order to tolerate our existence and, most of all, we lie to ourselves.

Writers, because they write, are condemned never to be readers of their own stories...The memory of first putting a story into words will always prevent writers from reading their work as an ordinary reader would.