I write novels because there is something I don't understand in reality.

I felt the need to tell stories to understand myself.

What better model of a synthesis than a nocturnal dream? Dreams simplify, don't they?

My stories are very somber, so I think I need the comic ingredient. Besides, life has so much humor.

I can work in films as long as the story doesn't have a realistic nature. If I'm working with an allegory, a fantasy, it can be developed in synthetic terms.

I think cinema is closer to allegories than to reality. It's closer to our dreams.

I am only interested in bad taste if I can enjoy a gruesome tango or watch a movie that makes me cry.

If it's great stuff, the people who consume it are nourished. It's a positive force.

Your reality, isn’t restricted by this cell we live in. If you read something, if you study something, you transcend any cell you’re inside of

If the novelist shares his or her problems with the characters, he or she is able to study his personal unconscious.

Teaching is a good distraction, and I am in contact with young people, which is very gratifying.

Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.

I’ve read Hamlet, I know men suffer.

Sometimes my hand starts to burn and I am convinced we are writing the same word at the same moment.

You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town

Let's be honest: the trappings of investment banking are quite tempting. I do miss it sometimes. And to be honest, there was a time I'd read the 'WSJ' in the morning, and for years I have done that.

Walk that walk and go forward all the time. Don't just talk that talk, walk it and go forward. Also, the walk didn't have to be long strides; baby steps counted too. Go forward.

To a longer and worse life, a shorter and better is by all means to be preferred.

Well, I don't use the toilet much to pee in. I almost always pee in the yard or the garden, because I like to pee on my estate.

We may live without friends; we may live without books But civilized men cannot live without cooks.

Fight, gentlemen of England! fight, bold yeomen! Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head! Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood; Amaze the welkin with your broken staves!