The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past.

True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power.

Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.

High culture is nothing but a child of that European perversion called history, the obsession we have with going forward, with considering the sequence of generations a relay race in which everyone surpasses his predecessor, only to be surpassed by his successor. Without this relay race called history there would be no European art and what characterizes it: a longing for originality, a longing for change. Robespierre, Napoleon, Beethoven, Stalin, Picasso, they're all runners in the relay race, they all belong to the same stadium.

For a novelist, a given historic situation is an anthropologic laboratory in which he explores his basic question: What is human existence?

Laughing deeply is living deeply.

Just imagine living in a world without mirrors. You'd dream about your face and imagine it as an outer reflection of what is inside you. And then, when you reached forty, someone put a mirror before you for the first time in your life. Imagine your fright! You'd see the face of a stranger. And you'd know quite clearly what you are unable to grasp: your face is not you.