As a teenager, Michel believed that suffering conferred dignity on a person. Now he had to admit that he had been wrong. What conferred dignity on people was television.

When you read the Koran, you give up. At least the Bible is very beautiful because Jews have an extraordinary literary talent.

In my own writing, I think of myself as a realist who exaggerates a little.

The terrible predicament of a beautiful girl is that only an experienced womanizer, someone cynical and without scruple, feels up to the challenge. More often than not, she will lose her virginity to some filthy lowlife in what proves to be the first step in an irrevocable decline.

On Sunday morning I went out for a while in the neighbourhood; I bought some raisin bread. The day was warm but a little sad, as Sundays often are in Paris, especially when one doesn't believe in God.

It's a curious idea to reproduce when you don't even like life.

In order to pass the time I told him the story of the German who ate the other German whom he’d met on the internet.