It is healthier to see the good points of others than to analyze our own bad ones.

Writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz. Much of the time life is a sort of rhythmic progression of three characters. If one tells oneself that life is like that, one feels it less arbitrary.

When man, Apollo man, rockets into space, it isn't in order to find his brother, I'm quite sure of that. It's to confirm that he hasn't any brothers.

Looking for pleasure is the best way to ensure you won't find it.

All my life, I will continue obstinately to write about love, solitude and passion among the kind of people I know. The rest don't interest me.

At night, time becomes a calm sea. It goes on for ever.

Of course the illusion of art is to make one believe that great literature is very close to life, but exactly the opposite is true. Life is amorphous, literature is formal.