What novel - or what else in the world - can have the epic scope of a photograph album? May our Father in Heaven, the untiring amateur who each Sunday snaps us from above, at an unfortunate angle that makes for hideous foreshortening, and pastes our pictures, properly exposed or not, in his album, guide me safely through this album of mine.

An empty bus hurtles through the starry night Perhaps the driver is singing and happy because he sings.

I don't believe in writing at night because it comes too easily. When I read it in the morning it's not good. I need daylight to begin. Between nine and ten o'clock I have a long breakfast with reading and music.

In general, I agree with Jacob Grimm and feel that we ought to permit changes and uncontrolled growth in language. Even though that also allows potentially threatening new words to develop, language needs the chance to constantly renew itself.

Believing: it means believing in our own lies. And I can say that I am grateful that I got this lesson very early.

One of the mistakes the Germans made ... was that they were not brave enough to be afraid.

We already have the statistics for the future: the growth percentages of pollution, overpopulation, desertification. The future is already in place.