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.

I have never sought the reason why I write.

Those who live in a world of human beings can only retrace their steps.

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

Women have seen that they have locked themselves up with feminist writing.

It's a question of not copying the masters, to look for something, good or bad, for oneself. To enter this liberated state of mind, one cannot copy the others.

The reader has to be creative when he's reading. He has to try to make the thing alive. A good reader has to do a certain amount of work when he is reading.