Now the new things happening in France don't interest me.

In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could to any person; I create myself.

Unfortunately, moral beauty in art - like physical beauty in a person - is extremely perishable.

I was not looking for my dreams to interpret my life, but rather for my life to interpret my dreams.

The wisdom of literature is quite antithetical to having opinions. 'Nothing is my last word about anything,' said Henry James. Furnishing opinions, even correct opinions - whenever asked - cheapens what novelists and poets do best, which is to sponsor reflectiveness, to pursue complexity. Information will never replace illumination.

Reading usually precedes writing. And the impulse to write is almost always fired by reading. Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a writer.

The highest vocation of photography is to explain man to man.