happiness has always seemed to me a great achievement.

I've tried very hard and I've never found any resemblance between the people I know and the people in my novels.

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 did not find him absurd. I saw he was kind, that he was on the verge of real love. I thought it would be nice for me to be in love with him, too.

One partner is always more in love than the other.

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

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.