“The absence of the will to live is, alas, not sufficient to make one want to die.”

“Life is painful and disappointing. It is useless, therefore, to write new realistic novels. We generally know where we stand in relation to reality and dont care to know any more.”

“People often say that the English are very cold fish, very reserved, that they have a way of looking at things even tragedy with a sense of irony. Theres some truth in it; its pretty stupid of th...”

“Maybe I should have gone into politics. If you were a political activist, election season brought moments of intensity, whichever side you were on, and meanwhile here I was inarguably withering away,”

“In societies like ours sex truly represents a second system of differentiation, completely independent of money; and as a system of differentiation it functions mercilessly. The effects of these tw...”

“The world outside had its own rules, and those rules were not human.”

“Being a writer all boils down to this: It's you, in a chair, staring at a page. And you're either going to stay in that chair until words are written, or you're going to give up and walk away. The ...”

“When male authors write love stories, the heroine tends to end up dead.”

“Im likely to stay here, pen in hand, until dusk comes and my writing melts into the twilight.”

“nights and days came and passedand summer and winterand the sun and the windand the rain.and it was good to be a little islanda part of the worldand a world of its ownall surrounded by the bright b...”

“When you drop a glass or a plate to the ground it makes a loud crashing sound. When a window shatters a table leg breaks or when a picture falls off the wall it makes a noise. But as for your heart...”

“A good friend of mine once said, "I have never met a bigot who was a reader as a child.”

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that youve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you sa...”

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there i...”