Writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness. I don't think an artist can ever be happy.

A novelist is a man who doesn't like his mother.

I have always tried to write in a simple way, using down-to-earth and not abstract words.

I am at home everywhere, and nowhere. I am never a stranger and I never quite belong.

One of them, for example, which will probably haunt me more than any other is the problem of communication.

Trotsky rises to give me his hand, then sits at his desk, gently allowing his regard to light on my person.

And Boucard desisted, probably because like everyone else he was deeply impressed by this man who had laid all ghosts, who had lost all shadows, and who stared you in the eyes with cold serenity.