All psychological research is completely barred by the interpretations of the psychoanalysts. Everything happens in the unconscious, and I don't know what this unconscious is.

One can't write without having read - you have to read before beginning to write - and universities offer a very good opportunity to read.

The novel moves like all the arts. It's transforming itself all the time.

Neither reproaches nor encouragements are able to revive a faith that is waning.

It's the duty of all novelists, all painters, all musicians, all people who try to make art move: to look for something they feel authentically, without paying attention to styles.

Suspicion is one of the morbid reactions by which an organism defends itself and seeks another equilibrium.

I don't admire Freud as much as some people do. Imagine Shakespeare being aware of the Oedipal complex when he wrote Hamlet. It would have been a disaster.