The writer has a life and a personality but the problem of today is that most of those writers have exactly the same life; they belong to the same social class, the same milieu, they have the same experiences. Once you read one of those books, you have read them all. And this is a problem.
Pascal BrucknerYou are not doomed to reproduce what your ancestors have done. The son will not be like his father, the daughter will not be like her mother. She can invent something new. I think that is the best message of modernity.
Pascal BrucknerYou're happy when you leave your concerns to the side and when you experience a pure moment of joy with friends.
Pascal BrucknerWhatever the flows of our modern times are the idea is that you can create something new out of nothing.
Pascal BrucknerToday, luxury resides in everything that is becoming rare: communion with nature, silence, meditation, slowness rediscovered, the pleasure of living out of step with others, studious idleness, the enjoyment of the major works of the mindโthese are all privileges that cannot be bought because they are literally priceless.
Pascal BrucknerThere is no life without guilt anyway, at least in the Western world. I think in other civilizations it might be different but if the world is getting Westernized all over, guilt will enter through the technology and democracy and their actions. It will come side by side so there won't be anymore innocent societies in the future I think which in fact is not such a bad thing.
Pascal Bruckner