My novels are about the European reality, not about chases. You want chases, get somebody else's books.

Politicians were like talking dogs in a circus: the fact that they existed was uncommonly interesting, but no sane person would actually believe what they said

Whether you like it or not, Paris is the beating heart of Western civilisation. It's where it all began and ended.

You can't make accommodations in crucial situations and be heroic.

Wherever God has planted you, you must know how to flower - translated from a French saying

If you can live in Paris, maybe you should.

Live today, for tomorrow we die.

I have a very serious censorship office inside my head; it censors things that I could tell you that you would never forget, and I don't want to be the person to stick that in your brain.

The best Paris I know now is in my head.

Once you have your characters, they tell you what to write, you don't tell them.

One is what one has the nerve to pretend to be.

it was like staring at a whitewashed wall, but without all the emotion

Only when your inner life is right will your outer life be right as well.

Today's egg is better than tomorrow's hen.

Free speech isn't dead in Germany and Italy, merely the speakers.

To understand the culture, study the dance. To understand the dance, study the people.

The idea of seeing the sea - of being near it - watching its changes by sunrise, sunset, moonlight, and noonday - in calm, perhaps in storm - fills and satisfies my mind.

Can't sleep unless the TV is on.

When I don't like a piece of music, I make a point of listening to it more closely

I collaborate with people who know I'm a control freak.

Keep thy hook always baited, for a fish lurks even in the most unlikely swim.