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.

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

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

An entire life spent reading would have fulfilled my every desire; I already knew that at the age of seven. The texture of the world is painful, inadequate; unalterable, or so it seems to me. Really, I believe that an entire life spent reading would have suited me best. Such a life has not been granted me.

I am for the muscles. I would like to have a lot of muscles, because women like it. I'm for bodybuilding, but it's very exhausting.

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

Active people don't change the world profoundly; ideas do. Napoleon is less important in world history than Jean-Jacques Rousseau.