Only a soul full of despair can ever attain serenity and, to be in despair, you must have loved a good deal and still love the world.

Humanity lives in its fiction.

Photogenic is a stupid, nonsensical word, but it is also a great mystery.

One's life, from being an exterior thing, grows inwards. Its intensity stays the same; and, d'you know, it's most mysterious, the corners in which the joy of living can sometimes hide away.

The single fact of existing is already a true happiness.

I'm not an extraordinary worker, I'm an extraordinary daydreamer. I exceed all my fantasies-even that of writing.

A writer should never install himself before a panorama, however grandiose it may be.

Writing is a noble privilege compared with the lot of most people, who live like parts of a machine, who live only to keep the gears of society pointlessly turning.

Life The machine The human soul A 75mm breech My portrait

Without the help of selfishness, the human animal would never have developed. Egoism is the vine by which man hoisted himself out of the swamp and escaped from the jungle.

My poor life This shawl Frayed on strongboxes full of gold I roll along with Dream And smoke And the only flame in the universe

The sun is still there... even if clouds drift over it. Once you have experienced the reality of sunshine you may weep, but you will never feel ice about your heart again.

Extreme emotional pain has a profound effect on the body. I witnessed my already frail body become even more toxic and plundered.

Love, care and treasure the elderly people in the society.

These days with the web, you can burn out a character really quick.

It's like walking on a 1970 blaze orange shag carpet in a kitchen.

Smile, it increases you face value.

But surely love wouldn't get so much talked about if there were not something in it?

One of the stock Sydney jokes is of the census-taker who enquires: 'How many children have you, ma'am?' 'Two living and three in Melbourne.'

I saw Redeye, and I love being scared and on the edge of my seat.

... If we don't tell strange stories, when something strange happens we won't believe it.