"To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death; what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know oneself immortal."

"I don't write for posterity. I write for myself and for my friends."

"The world is a maze, and I am lost in it."

"One day, we'll wake up and we'll be old. And we'll be happy, or we'll be sad, or we'll be dead. But we'll be old."

"I am not sure that I exist, in fact. I am all the writers I have read, all the people I have met, all the women I have loved; all the cities I have visited, all the ancestors I have had."