I think it is all a matter of love: the more you love a memory, the stronger and stranger it is.

I would like to spare the time and effort of hack reviewers and, generally, persons who move their lips when reading.

Genius is an African who dreams up snow.

Beauty plus pity-that is the closest we can get to a definition of art. Where there is beauty there is pity for the simple reason that beauty must die: beauty always dies, the manner dies with the matter, the world dies with the individual.

My principal failing as a writer is the lack of spontaneity; the nuisance of parallel thoughts, second thoughts, third thoughts; inability to express myself properly in any language unless I compose every damned sentence in my bath, in my mind, at my desk.

I was also supposed to quiz my various companions on a number of important matters such as nostalgia, fear of unknown animals, food fantasies, nocturnal emissions, hobbies, choice of radio program, changes in out look and so forth.

Literature is invention. Fiction is fiction. To call a story a true story is an insult to both art and truth.