Father died last year. I don't subscribe to the theory by which we only become truly adult when our parents die; we never become truly adult.

Life is painful and disappointing. It is useless, therefore, to write new realistic novels. We generally know where we stand in relation to reality and don’t care to know any more.

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.

When a country is strong... it accepts any dose of pessimism from its writers.

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.

A source of permanent, accessible pleasure, our genitals exist. The god who created our misfortune, who made us short-lived, vain and cruel, has also provided this form of meagre compensation. If we couldn't have sex from time to time, what would life be? A futile struggle against joints that stiffen, caries that form. All of which, moreover, is as uninteresting as humanly possible - the collagen which makes muscles stiffen, the appearance of microbic cavities in the gums.

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