La lecture est un rêve libre.

Écrire, c'est faire appel au lecteur pour qu'il fasse passer à l'existence objective le dévoilement que j'ai entrepris par le moyen du langage.

Better a good journalist than a poor assassin.

Le génie n'est qu'un prêt: il faut le mériter par de grandes souffrances, par des épreuves modestement, fermement traversées; on finit par entendre des voix et l'on écrit sous la dictée.

Poetry creates the myth, the prose writer draws its portrait.

Nommer c'est montrer et [...] montrer c'est changer.

The most clear-sided view of the darkest possible situation is itself an act of optimism

I am not listening to him any more, but hemust have strayed from his original subject because I suddenly hear:". . . to have, as you, the good fortune of writing a book." I have to say something. "Good fortune," I say, dubiously.He mistakes the sense of my answer and rapidly corrects himself:"Monsieur, I should have said: 'merit.

Many young people today do not concern themselves with style. They think that what one says should be said simply and that is all. For me, style - which does not exclude simplicity, quite the opposite - is above all a way of saying three or four things in one. There is the simple sentence, with its immediate meaning, and then at the same time, below this immediate meaning, other meanings are organized. If one is not capable of giving language this plurality of meaning, then it is not worth the trouble to write.