The hands of the guilty don’t necessarily tremble; only in stories does a dropped glass betray agitation. Tension is more often shown in the studied action.
I aim to be content with what I produce. It’s an aim I never achieve, but I go over my work word by word, time and again, so as to be as little dissatisfied as possible.
Of two hearts one is always warm and one is always cold: the cold heart is more precious than diamonds: the warm heart has no value and is thrown away.
To be in love is to see yourself as someone else sees you, it is to be in love with the falsified and exalted image of yourself. In love we are incapable of honor – the courageous act is no more than playing a part to an audience of two.
An autobiography is only ‘a sort of life’ – it may contain less errors of fact than a biography, but it is of necessity even more selective: it begins later and it ends prematurely.
We can love with our minds, but can we love only with our minds? Love extends itself all the time, so that we can love even with our senseless nails: we love even with our clothes, so that a sleeve can feel a sleeve.
A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.
