I never even dreamt of being a writer because I didn't feel allowed. When I was a child I was terribly ambitious, but I didn't know at all what this great thing would become.

Because we don't have much time together, I will give you as much love in a year as I could give you in a lifetime.

The purpose of the photograph is to reveal the love that is felt in a single image.

If you admire yourself in the mirror, let it be in fear and not delight, because the only thing that beauty will bring to you is terror of losing it.

Japanese women live in fear of making the least sound in a bathroom stall. Japanese men pay no attention to the subject whatsoever.

Une histoire d'amour dont les épisodes ont été mélangés par un fou

More and more I understand that it's very fine not to know where you come from.

I've noticed it a lot. I'm not someone who revises. It's always the first movement, it's that. It's an instinct. Either it works straight away, or it won't ever work.

When I want to be incognito, I don't wear any hat. Unfortunately, even without the hat, they now recognise me in Paris.

Luckily I haven't fallen into the trap, which has claimed so many writers, of living from day to day thinking 'Ah, I'll write a book about that.'

It's while writing that suddenly a point of view appears: 'So, that's what I really thought about this thing'. Then it feels part of me.

And despite the clamors and the violence, we tried to preserve in our hearts the memory of a happy sea, of a remembered hill, the smile of a beloved face.

I've been called a recluse. There's definitely truth in that. I like to spend time alone.

Don't say it was "delightful"; make us say "delightful" when we've read the description.

I would be in Italy working on a film, longing for something simple - like, God, I would just kill to be sitting at a barbecue having a beer right now.

First time I kissed you, I lost my legs.

Birds are extremely valued as indicators of overall environmental health. If there's a problem in a wild bird population, it's indicative that something went wrong.

No one I know of has ever had this experience-where you had to sit and wait and wait for a DNA test to come back just so you can write the last page of the book.

One of the things that all authors of fiction must learn to judge is whether - and in what detail - to describe the face of a character.

Autumn is full of leave-taking.

Literature begins with the possible model of experience, and what it produces is the literary model we call the classic.