The great advantage of a novel is you can put in whatever comes into your head - it has the same shape as the human brain.

I'd say that the question whether love still exists plays the same role in my novels as the question of God's existence in Dostoevsky.

The love of a dog is a pure thing. He gives you a trust which is total. You must not betray it.

I've lived so little that I tend to imagine I'm not going to die; it seems improbable that human existence can be reduced to so little; one imagines, in spite of oneself, that sooner or later something is bound to happen. A big mistake. A life can just as well be both empty and short. The days slip by indifferently, leaving neither trace nor memory; and then all of a sudden they stop.

To increase desires to an unbearable level whilst making the fulfillment of them more and more inaccessible: this was the single principle upon which Western society was based.

When we think about the present, we veer wildly between the belief in chance and the evidence in favour of determinism. When we think about the past, however, it seems obvious that everything happened in the way that it was intended.

Beds last on an average much longer than marriages.