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

The one thing I regret is that I will never have time to read all the books I want to read.

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

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

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.

He refused categorically all ideas of fidelity or serious commitments. He explained that they were arbitrary and sterile. From anyone else such views would have shocked me, but I knew that in his case they did not exclude tenderness and devotion - feelings which came all the more easily to him since he was determined that they should be transient.

For what are we looking for if not to please? I do not know if the desire to attract others comes from a superabundance of vitality, possessiveness, or the hidden, unspoken need to be reassured.