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.

I've often found myself preferring second-rate people to supposedly superior people, simply and solely because of their uncontrollable tendency to bang themselves against the sides of life's vast lampshade like fireflies or moths.

If you treat life well, life is usually good to you. And I love life. There's a long-standing affair between us.

People respect unhappiness and find it especially hard to forgive success.

One can never speak enough of the virtues, the dangers, the power of shared laughter.

I was thinking that I should be content to kiss him until the break of day. Bertrand ran out of kisses too soon; desire made them superfluous in his eyes. They were only a stage on the road to pleasure, not something inexhaustible and self-sufficient, as Luc had revealed them to me.

The questions I would have liked to ask people were: ‘Are you in love? What are you reading?