The creation of a work of art, like an act of love, is our one small 'yes' at the center of a vast 'no.'

The best novelist of my generation is an Italian living in Paris, still working and improving - Italo Calvino.

At a certain age, you have to live near good medical care — if, that is, you're going to continue. You always have the option of not continuing, which, I fear, is sometimes nobler.

Before the cards that one is dealt by life are the cards that fate has dealt: one's family.

To speak today of a famous novelist is like speaking of a famous cabinetmaker or speedboat designer. Adjective is inappropriate to noun.

Sex is. There is nothing more to be done about it. Sex builds no roads, writes no novels and sex certainly gives no meaning to anything in life but itself.

People have forgotten the effects of prohibition. We have become the United Statesof Amnesia.