(Egypt) is a great place for contrasts: splendid things gleam in the dust.

Writing this book I am like a man playing the piano with lead balls attached to his knuckles.

Sometimes I think I'm liquefying like an old Camembert.

What stops me from taking myself seriously, even though I am essentially a serious person, is that I find myself extremely ridiculous, not in the sense of the small-scale ridiculousness of slap-stick comedy, but rather in the sense of ridiculousness that seems intrinsic to human life and that manifests itself in the simplest actions and the most extraordinary gestures.

She was as sated with him as he was tired of her. Emma had rediscovered in adultery all the banality of marriage.

He had the vanity to believe men did not like him – while men simply did not know him.

You can calculate the worth of a man by the number of his enemies, and the importance of a work of art by the harm that is spoken of it.