Captain Cook discovered Australia looking for the Terra Incognita. Christopher Columbus thought he was finding India but discovered America. History is full of events that happened because of an imaginary tale.

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.

It takes a little time, but the pleasures of cooking begin before the pleasures of the palate, and preparing means anticipating.

I think a book should be judged 10 years later, after reading and re-reading it.

Does the novel have to deepen the psychology of its heroes? Certainly the modern novel does, but the ancient legends did not do the same. Oedipus' psychology was deduced by Aeschylus or Freud, but the character is simply there, fixed in a pure and terribly disquieting state.

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.

Libraries can take the place of God.