I saw Mussolini tirelessly contemplate a parade of thousands of young men.

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

It was night and I could see a large and calm lake, reflecting the moon. Black mountains rose around it. I arrived from between two of these mountains, I looked at the lake and the moon, and that was it, nothing else happened.

It just happened. As though a moment comes when it's both necessary and natural to make a decision that has long since been made.

The place smelled of fairgrounds, of lazy crowds, of nights when you stayed out because you couldn't go to bed, and it smelled like New York, of its calm and brutal indifference.

For 30 years I have tried to make it understood that there are no criminals.

I write fast, because I have not the brains to write slow.