The language must be careful and must appear effortless. It must not sweat. It must suggest and be provocative at the same time.

I have only to break into the tightness of a strawberry, and I see summer - its dust and lowering skies.

If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down.

The function of freedom is to free someone else.

Don’t beg anybody for anything, especially love.

There is no such thing as race. None. There is just a human race - scientifically, anthropologically. Racism is a construct, a social construct... it has a social function, racism.

There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent.

All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.

Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.

The calendar is a human invention

I knew I had to be the best at something, otherwise I would be nothing. I knew I wanted the world to know about Brigitte Bardot.

During the lifetime of Japan I became very neurotic, very paranoid.

Those who have the youth on their side control the future.

The bolder and more courageous you are, the more you will learn about yourself.

I just try to do my best and make the best judgments I can.

It strikes me how strange people are. You can see them every day - you can think you know them - and then you fшnd out you hardly know them at all.

We must not stand upon trifles.

It was a hard time. It was something I would love to erase from my memory.

We must be talented, powerful and resilient creatures indeed given how much we manage to produce despite the constant undercutting, ridicule and needless censorship we aim at ourselves.