Usually I avoided college students, whom I considered brutal, wrapped up in themselves, particularly in their youth, in which they found material for drama or an excuse for their own boredom. I did not care for young people.

In love, as in finance, only the rich can get credit.

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.

After Proust, there are certain things that simply cannot be done again. He marks off for you the boundaries of your talent.

I think the best way to waste time is to try to save time.

Art must take reality by surprise. It takes those moments which are for us merely a moment, plus a moment, plus another moment, and arbitrarily transforms them into a special series of moments held together by a major emotion.

It amused me to think that one can tell the truth when one is drunk and nobody will believe it.