No past to make us sentimental, no future to embarrass us...a difficult moment when you are out of practice - a moment that makes you go cold, cold and wary.

I have been here five days. I have decided on a place to eat in at midday, a place to eat in at night, a place to have my drink in after dinner. I have arranged my little life.

Cold - cold as truth, cold as life. No, nothing can be as cold as life.

You imagine the carefully pruned, shaped thing that is presented to you is truth. That is just what it isn't. The truth is improbable, the truth is fantastic; it's in what you think is a distorting mirror that you see the truth.

One realized all sorts of things. The value of an illusion, for instance, and that the shadow can be more important than the substance. All sorts of things.

Soon he'll come in again and kiss me, but differently. He'll be different and so I'll be different. It'll be different. I thought, 'It'll be different, different. It must be different.

I like shape very much. A novel has to have shape, and life doesn't have any.