Lovers, children, heroes, none of them do we fantasize as extravagantly as we fantasize our parents.

Art is both a vengeance against reality and a reconciliation with it.

The choice between starving and being eaten is an exotic one.

The vast Pacific ocean would always remain the islanders' great solace, escape and nourishment, the amniotic fluid that would keep them hedonistic and aloof, guarded, gentle and mysterious.

Why are there no great women artists?' sounds as ignorant of human geography as the query 'Why are there no Eskimo tennis teams?

Mine [parents] started out more from scratch, because I'm constantly aware of what they suffered in the war.

I didn't find this memoir of these two eccentric people so different from doing my memoirs of De Sade or Simone Weil. My parents in their own way are as odd as Sade.