One can show no greater respect than to weep for a stranger.

In effect I am not a novelist, but rather a failed essayist who started to write novels because he didn't know how to write essays.

If I could repeat my childhood, I would repeat it exactly as it was, with the poverty, the cold, little food, with the flies and pigs, all that.

A tree weeps when cut down, a dog howls when beaten, but a man matures when offended.

Every thing in life is a uniform; the only time our bodies are truly in civilian dress is when we're naked.

Men are angels born without wings, nothing could be nicer than to be born without wings and to make them grow.

I am traveling less in order to be able to write more. I select my travel destinations according to their degree of usefulness to my work.