You can't measure the mutual affection of two human beings by the number of words they exchange.

There is a certain part of all of us that lives outside of time. Perhaps we become aware of our age only at exceptional moments and most of the time we are ageless.

All novels . . . are concerned with the enigma of the self. As soon as you create an imaginary being, a character, you are automatically confronted by the question: what is the self? How can it be grasped?

Jealousy has the amazing power to illuminate a single person in an intense beam of light, keeping the multitude of others in total darkness.

Extremism means borders beyond which life ends, and a passion for extremism, in art and in politics, is a veiled longing for death.

We go through the present blindfolded... Only later, when the blindfold is removed and we examine the past, do we realize what we've been through and understand what it means.

The source of anxiety lies in the future. If you can keep the future out of mind, you can forget your worries.