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.

Looking for pleasure is the best way to ensure you won't find it.

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.

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

A dress makes no sense unless it inspires men to take it off of you.

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

Love lasts about seven years. That's how long it takes for the cells of the body to totally replace themselves.