The novel is a territory where one does not make assertions; it is a territory of play and of hypotheses.

The Greek word for "return" is nostos. Algos means "suffering." So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return.

The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything.

There is a certain part of all of us that lives outside of time. Perhaps we become aware of our age only at exceptional moments and most of the time we are ageless.

Those who consider the Devil to be a partisan of Evil and angels to be warriors for Good accept the demagogy of the angels. Things are clearly more complicated.

Dreaming is not merely an act of communication; it is also an aesthetic activity, a game of the imagination, a game that is a value in itself.

Her drama was a drama not of heaviness but of lightness. What fell to her lot was not the burden but the unbearable lightness of being.

The worst thing is not that the world is unfree, but that people have unlearned their liberty.

When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.

In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.

Memory does not make films, it makes photographs.

It's strange because sometimes, I read a book, and I think I am the people in the book. Also, when I write letters, I spend the next two days thinking about what I figured out in my letters.

Never discipline whom you've not discipled.

You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money, compliments, or publicity.

Image is something you construct, while reputation starts at home. If you are able to pass on solid values to your children, then they can become citizens of the world.

To know yourself you need not go to any book, to any priest, to any psychologist. The whole treasure is within yourself.

I walked away to get wisdom, but in the end I just walked home.

Sometimes I think that if I wasn't crazy... I'd go crazy.

It is easy to rule over the good.

You keep playing, you get a lead and build on it. People get mad when you keep playing, but that's part of the game, too.