Illness is the opposite of freedom. It makes everything impossible.

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.

I've read Proust and Stendhal. That keeps you in your place.

My love of pleasure seems to be the only consistent side of my character. Is it because I have not read enough?

When you make a decision to write according to a set schedule and really stick to it, you find yourself writing very fast. At least I do.

When man, Apollo man, rockets into space, it isn't in order to find his brother, I'm quite sure of that. It's to confirm that he hasn't any brothers.

Jazz music is an intensified feeling of nonchalance.