Lifelessness is only a disguise behind which hide unknown forms of life.

One thing must be avoided at all costs: narrow-mindedness, pedantry, dull pettiness.

Reality is as thin as paper and betrays with all its cracks its imitative character.

My ideal goal is to "mature" into childhood. That would be genuine maturity.

Now the windows, blinded by the glare of the empty square, had fallen asleep. The balconies declared their emptiness to heaven; the open doorways smelt of coolness and wine.

Under the imaginary table that separates me from my readers, don’t we secretly clasp each other’s hands?

And one's wandering proved as sterile and pointless as the excitement produced by a close study of pornographic albums.

The days hardened with cold and boredom like last year's loaves of bread. One began to cut them with blunt knives without appetite, with a lazy indifference.

Reality is as thin as paper, and betrays with all its cracks its imitative character.

They were villages forgotten in the depth of time, peopled by creatures chained forever to their tiny destinies.

I find that writing is as magical as the genre I write in. When the story comes alive and takes over, it's truly a journey to another world.

If it is not tempered by compassion, and empathy, reason can lead men and women into a moral void. (95)

And I would try and walk far enough away that people would not assume I was with him.

People either buy nuclear power, nuclear reactors from outside, and don't train their own men, or they just don't go into nuclear power at all, they are so afraid of it.

I'm not a political thinker, but I've just always thought of myself as a Labour supporter. I was a great fan of Tony Blair. He sent me a letter before I swam the Channel to wish me luck.

It takes me a long time to understand my work myself, so I name them in the order that they're created.

The foolish undertake a trifling act, and soon desist, discouraged; wise men engage in mighty works, and persevere.

Bless more; blame less.

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.

A person who undertakes to grow a garden at home, by practices that will preserve rather than exploit the economy of the soil, has his mind precisely against what is wrong with us.