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.

Whisky, gambling and Ferraris are better than housework.

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

One can never speak enough of the virtues, the dangers, the power of shared laughter.

At night, time becomes a calm sea. It goes on for ever.

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.

Of course the illusion of art is to make one believe that great literature is very close to life, but exactly the opposite is true. Life is amorphous, literature is formal.