Learning how to be a good reader is what makes you a writer.

You can't state difference and also state equality. We have to state sameness to understand equality.

As far as I'm concerned, if you want to find out about the last day of WWII or the roots of the Indian Mutiny, get thee to a books catalogue.

The past is always tense, the future perfect.

Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.

Don’t romanticise your ‘vocation’. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no ‘writer’s lifestyle’. All that matters is what you leave on the page.

Time is how you spend your love.

I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.

Don't confuse honours with achievement.

Pulchritude--beauty where you would least suspect it, hidden in a word that looked like it should signify a belch or a skin infection.

Intelligent men are dangerous.

To keep up even a worthwhile tradition means vitiating the idea behind it which must necessarily be in a constant state of evolution: it is mad to try to express new feelings in a mummified form.

I wear no makeup in real life. I'm very simple. That may be why I go over the top for the red carpet. But otherwise, I'm very plain. I should make more of an effort, actually.

Strength, strength alone, is honorable, the German nation clamors in its majesty. But since it is hard to muster strength so suddenly, they have to make do with boorishness.

I had a mother who was very developed psychically and spiritually. She was, in a way, an opposite of my father, a complete liberal, interested in woman's liberation before it was the fashion.

The first few months of my life of every year are in total retreat. I don't see anybody except my husband and my dog, I don't talk to anybody, and I just write.

Well, every movie is an experiment. And the only way you can grow at what you're doing is to take chances. You can't try to stick with what worked last time.

Be merciful, moderate, and modest.

No sense in being a grifter if it's the same as being a citizen.

Knowing what is big and what is small is more important than being able to solve partial differential equations.