I didn't go to the lectures. My valet, who was more distinguished than I, went instead.

The difference between western and eastern intellectuals is that the former have not been kicked in the ass enough.

When one does not have what one wants, one must want what one has”: “I have had, you see, to resort more and more to very small, almost invisible pleasures, little extras. You've no idea how great one becomes with these little details, it's incredible how one grows.

Our element is unending immaturity.

Any artist who respects himself ought to be, and in every sense of the term, an emigre.

I became bold because I had absolutely nothing to lose: neither honors, nor earnings, nor friends. I had to find myself anew and rely only on myself, because I could rely on no one else. My form is my solitude.

Serious literature does not exist to make life easy but to complicate it.