It's easy to forget how central the French people are in everything we mean when we say Europe.

In certain savage tribes in New Guinea, they put the old people up in the trees and shake them once a year in the spring; if they don't fall out they let them live another year.

Letters are largely written to get things out of your system.

But what's the good of freedom? What can you do with it? What one wants is to live well and have a beautiful house and be respected by people.

Talk is a pure art. Its only limits are the patience of listeners who, when they get tired, can always pay for their coffee or change it with a friendly waiter and walk out.

The world's becoming a museum of socialist failures.

If there is a special Hades for writers is would be in the forced contemplation of their own works.