Gide and I have attained such perfect intellectual communion that I experience the appropriate labor pains for every thought he gives birth to!

I was fascinated by quotations and lists. And then I noticed that other people were fascinated by quotations and lists: people as different as Borges and Walter Benjamin, Novalis and Godard.

Using a camera appeases the anxiety which the work-driven feel about not working when they are on vacation and supposed to be having fun. They have something to do that is like a friendly imitation of work: they can take pictures.

This is the beauty that emerges from self-confidence, class confidence. That says, I am not born to please. I am born to be pleased.

Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.

A good listener: a physical presence that is warm, alert, intelligent - more important than any words.

A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world.