Do not imagine that Art is something which is designed to give gentle uplift and self-confidence . Art is not a brassiere. At least, not in the English sense. But do not forget that brassiere is the French word for life-jacket.

I hate the way the English have of not being serious about being serious, I really hate it.

Paris is certainly one of the most boastful of cities, and you could argue that it has had a lot to boast about: at various times the European centre of power, of civilisation, of the arts, and (self-advertisingly, at least) of love.

When I was still quite young I had a complete presentiment of life. It was like the nauseating smell of cooking escaping from a ventilator: you don't have to have eaten it to know that it would make you throw up.

Every love story is a potential grief story.

Novels tell us the most truth about life: what it is, how we live it, what it might be for, how we enjoy and value it, and how we lose it.

You lose the world for a glance? Of course you do. That is what the world is for: to lose under the right circunstances.