The happiness of people who are in love and who are loved shows in their faces. They have an expression that's at once very far away and very much part of the present.

Whisky, gambling and Ferraris are better than housework.

I dreamt of being a writer once I started to read. I started to write 'Bonjour Tristesse' in bistros around the Sorbonne. I finished it, I sent it to editors. It was accepted.

For me writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz.

I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live.

I don't think there's any intrinsic difference between a lover and a husband. ... If I were cynical, I would say that a woman should have both a good husband and a lover. But I'm not cynical so I'll just say that a woman should have a lover who's a good husband and a husband who's a good lover, perhaps both.

I recognize limitations in the sense that I've read Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky and Shakespeare . . . Aside from that I don't think of limiting myself.