Every novel is like this, desperation, a frustrated attempt to save something of the past. Except that it still has not been established whether it is the novel that prevents man from forgetting himself or the impossibility of forgetfulness that makes him write novels.

Look what happened with the employment law in France-the law was withdrawn because the people marched in the streets. I think what we need is a global protest movement of people who won't give up.

The virtue of maps, they show what can be done with limited space, they foresee that everything can happen therein.

...we confidently say that it's not worth trying to reach any conclusions merely because we decide to stop halfway along the path that would lead us straight to them.

Each part in itself constitutes the whole to which it belongs.

we would understand much more about life’s complexities if we applied ourselves to an assiduous study of its contradictions, instead of wasting time on identities and coherences, seeing as these have a duty to provide their own explanations.

Can you imagine what Bush would say if someone like Hugo Chavez asked him for a little piece of land to install a military base, and he only wanted to plant a Venezuelan flag there?