There's only one thing more boring than listening to other people's dreams, and that's listening to their problems.

Will you lie to me and promise to read them? Books need to be read. The pages need to be turned.

I took my sight and mobility for granted.

I don't know why women are so mad about flowers. Personally, they leave me cold. I prefer trees.

It's no surprise to me that intellectuals commit suicide, go mad or die from drink. We feel things more than other people. We know the world is rotten and that chins are ruined by spots.

I have decided to keep a full journal, in the hope that my life will perhaps seem more interesting when it is written down.

I never imagined when I began writing in the early 1960s I'd become professional and my life would be transformed.