The first thought that occurred to me, that night when I heard the chairman of the jury announce my name, was, Just think how many people hate me at this moment. Naturally, I wanted to annoy those people even further by being arrogant.

I'm a hopeless 19th-century romantic.

The world is not real for me until it has been pushed through the mesh of language.

Everything we do is tinged with the knowledge that this may be the last time that we will do this, and that makes what we're doing incredibly sweet.

The first thought that occurred to me, that night when I heard the chairman of the jury announce my name, was, Just think how many people hate me at this moment. Naturally, I wanted to annoy those people even further by being arrogant.

All a work of art can do is present the surface. I can't know the insides of people. I know very little about the inside of myself.

The secret of survival is a defective imagination.