Can you imagine a writer in England influencing? Absolutely not. And in France? It used to be, but no more-absolutely not. France used to, at least, have writers as diplomats, but not any more.

Writing is making sense of life. You work your whole life and perhaps you've made sense of one small area.

I couldn't be sufficiently interested in human beings to be a writer if I had contempt for human beings.

Writers themselves don't analyze what they do; to analyze would be to look down while crossing a canyon on a tightrope.

I have failed at many things, but I have never been afraid.

What is the purpose of writing? For me personally, it is really to explain the mystery of life, and the mystery of life includes, of course, the personal, the political, the forces that make us what we are while there's another force from inside battling to make us something else.

Written words still have the amazing power to bring out the best and worst of human nature