To comfort me is like the wrong memory at the wrong place or time: if one is lonely one prefers discomfort.

If I stopped loving Him, I would cease to believe in His love. If I loved God, then I would believe in His love for me. It's not enough to need it. We have to love first, and I don't know how. But I need it, how I need it.

...every monologue sooner or later becomes a discussion.

The subject of a novel is not the plot. Who remembers what happened to Lucien de Rebempre in the end?

Grief and disappointment are like hate: they make men ugly with self-pity and bitterness. And how selfish they make us too.

All good novelists have bad memories.

Reality in our century is not something to be faced.