It was awkward, revisiting a world you have never seen before: like coming home, after a long journey, to someone else’s house.

History is a blood-drenched enigma and the world an error.

The lunatic is all idée fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy. You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars.

Originality and creativity are nothing but the result of the wise management of combinations. The creative genius combines more rapidly, and with a greater critical sense of what gets tossed out and what gets saved, the same material that the failed genius has to work with.

The function of memory is not only to preserve, but also to throw away. If you remembered everything from your entire life, you would be sick.

To survive, you must tell stories.

I love the secrecy of writing fiction. When I write a novel, I don't tell anybody what I'm doing. I'm living in my private world. And it's a great sensation.