The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin.

He is ugly and sad, but he is all love.

His place was always set at the table, in case he rturned from the dead without warning .

I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century, to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love.

A short time later, when the carpenter was taking measurements for the coffin, through the window they saw a light rain of tiny yellow flowers falling. They fell on the town all through the night in a silent storm, and they covered the roofs and blocked the doors and smothered the animals who slept outdoors. So many flowers fell from the sky that in the morning the streets were carpeted with a compact cushion and they had to clear them away with shovels and rakes so that the funeral procession could pass by.

Tell him,' the colonel said, smiling, 'that a person doesn’t die when he should but when he can.

When I sit down to write, which is the essential moment in my life, I am completely alone. Whenever I write a book, I accumulate a lot of documentation. That background material is the most intimate part of my private life. It's a little embarrassing - like being seen in your underwear It's like the way magicians never tell others how they make a dove come out of a hat.