Self-expression is a hard and selfish thing. It eats everything, even the self. At the end you find you haven't even got a self to express.

Pain is easy to write. In pain we're all happily individual. But what can one write about happiness?

Cynicism is cheap - you can buy it at any Monoprix store - it's built into all poor-quality goods.

Death was far more certain than God.

I couldn't help wondering, is my husband so unattractive that no woman has ever wanted him? Except me, of course. I must have wanted him, in a way, once, but I've forgotten why, and I was too young to know what I was choosing.

Time has its revenges, but revenge seems so often sour. Wouldn’t we all do better not trying to understand, accepting the fact that no human being will ever understand another, not a wife with a husband, nor a parent a child? Perhaps that’s why men have invented God – a being capable of understanding.

If I had to choose between life in the Soviet Union and life in the U. S. A. , I would certainly choose the Soviet Union.