I'm a novelist, so I can't write about ideas unless they're attached to people.

The more you learn, the less you fear. "Learn" not in the sense of academic study, but in the practical understanding of life.

There is accumulation. There is responsibility. And beyond this there is great unrest.

I dreamt that I woke up. It's the oldest dream of all, and I've just had it

Perhaps the world progresses not by maturing, but by being in a permanent state of adolescence, of thrilled discovery.

It took me some years to clear my head of what Paris wanted me to admire about it, and to notice what I preferred instead. Not power-ridden monuments, but individual buildings which tell a quieter story: the artist's studio, or the Belle Epoque house built by a forgotten financier for a just-remembered courtesan.

Remember the botched brothel-visit in L’Education sentimentale and remember its lesson. Do not participate: happiness lies in the imagination, not the act. Pleasure is found first in anticipation, later in memory.