I have always paid careful attention to social and economic conflicts, to the dialectic - if we can call it that - between high and low. Maybe it's because I was not born or brought up in affluence.

The rules say that to tell a story you need first of all a measuring stick, a calendar, you have to calculate how much time has passed between you and the facts, the emotions to be narrated.

The circle of an empty day is brutal and at night it tightens around your neck like a noose

I believe that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors.

It's the people who love us or hate us - or both - who hold together the thousands of fragments we are made of.

Existence is this, I thought, a start of joy, a stab of pain, an intense pleasure, veins that pulse under the skin, there is no other truth to tell.

I didn't choose anonymity.Instead, I chose absence.

I think our sexuality is all yet to be recounted and that the rich male literary tradition constitutes a huge obstacle.

I don't have any special passion for politics, it being a never-ending merry-go-round of bosses big and small, all generally mediocre. I actually find it boring.

In order not to cut out a large part of one's private life, the creative work should not swallow up every other form of self-expression. But that is the most complicated thing.

I am the queen of spades, I am the wasp that stings, I am the dark serpent. I am the invulnerable animal who passes through fire and is not burned.

The simple act of being completely attentive & present to another person is an act of love, and it fosters unshakeable well-being.

It is impossible to say why people put so little value on complete happiness.

I think what we need to do is to have an immigration system where legal immigration is easier.

Sons have always a rebellious wish to be disillusioned by that which charmed their fathers.

I'd like to be more approachable, not less weird

Under pressure, one of the most important things I have to remember to do is breathe.

I've lost many of my best friends... I'm going to satisfy myself now, not the critics, not even my friends.

It's hard to know what you can do just on your own as a new administration.

Sexual attraction keeps throwing self-interest off course.

Sometimes I was so funny I couldn’t stand myself.