Of course the illusion of art is to make one believe that great literature is very close to life, but exactly the opposite is true. Life is amorphous, literature is formal.

Life has confirmed for me the thoughts and impressions I had when I was 18, as if it was all intuition.

There are moments when you feel trapped, ill at ease. A year later the same feeling can turn out to be the theme of a book.

Writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz. Much of the time life is a sort of rhythmic progression of three characters. If one tells oneself that life is like that, one feels it less arbitrary.

To jealousy, nothing is more frightful than laughter.