I have often heard that the novel is dead. But I see novels produced, I don't know how many a week, in France. I have the impression it's carrying along quite well.

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

I have never sought the reason why I write.

For me, the poetry in a work is that which makes visible the invisible.

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.

I don't for a minute think that Hitler is like Joan of Arc. But I think that at that deep level of tropisms, Hitler or Stalin must have experienced the same tropisms as anyone else.

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