He reflected. 'I know a lot of different kids of people; what I want is to show each of them how the others really are. You hear so many lies!

Those interested in perpetuating present conditions are always in tears about the marvelous past that is about to disappear, without having so much as a smile for the young future.

Writing is a trade ... which is learned by writing.

Sometimes speech is no more than a device for saying nothing - and a neater one than silence.

Indeed, there is nothing more arbitrary than intervening as a stranger in a destiny which is not ours.

Old age is better for women than for men. First of all, they have less far to fall, since their lives are more mediocre than those of most men.

A life is such a strange object, at one moment translucent, at another utterly opaque, an object I make with my own hands, an object imposed on me, an object for which the world provides the raw material and then steals it from me again, pulverized by events, scattered, broken, scored yet retaining its unity; how heavy it is and how inconsistent: this contradiction breeds many misunderstandings.