As I've explained to my wife many times, you have to kill your wife or mistress to get on the front page of the papers.

I have at times tried to imagine the despair which leads to suicide, attempted to conjure up the slew and slop of darkness in which only death appears as a pinprick of light: in other words, the exact opposite of the normal condition of life.

Life seemed even more of a guessing game than usual.

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.

WHORES. Necessary in the nineteenth century for the contraction of syphilis, without which no one could claim genius.

If you remember your past too well you start blaming your present for it. Look what they did to me, that's what caused me to be like this, it's not my fault. Permit me to correct you: it probably is your fault. And kindly spare me the details.

In Britain I'm sometimes regarded as a suspiciously Europeanized writer, who has this rather dubious French influence.