If alcohol is queen, then tobacco is her consort. It's a fond companion for all occasions, a loyal friend through fair weather and foul.

Mystery is the essential element of every work of art.

The decline of the aperitif may well be one of the most depressing phenomena of our time.

I can only wait for the final amnesia, the one that can erase an entire life.

A writer or painter cannot change the world. But they can keep an essential margin of nonconformity alive.

I think films are perishable, because they depend too much on technology, which advances too quickly and the films become old-fashioned, antiques. What I hope for is that technology advances to the point that films in the future will depend on a little pill which you take; then you sit in the dark, and from your eyes you project the film you want to see on a blank wall.

If you were to ask me if I'd ever had the bad luck to miss my daily cocktail, I'd have to say that I doubt it; where certain things are concerned, I plan ahead.