For this was the round of love: fear which leads on desire, tenderness and fury, and that brutal anguish which triumphantly follows pleasure.

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

Passion is the salt of life, and that at the times when we are under its spell this salt is indispensable to us, even if we have got along very well without it before.

Writing is just having a sheet of paper, a pen and not a shadow of an idea of what you are going to say.

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.

It isn't common sense that is paramount in this world, it's wishful thinking.

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