People who write fiction, if they had not taken it up, might have become very successful liars.

I've seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil.

God knows I didn't mean to fall in love with her

I spend a hell of a lot of time killing animals and fish so I wouldn't kill myself. When a man is in rebellion against death, as I am in rebellion against death, he gets pleasure out of taking to himself one of the godlike attributes; that of giving it.

The only kind of writing is rewriting.

Fish," he said, "I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends.

The one who is doing his work and getting satisfaction from it is not the one the poverty bothers.