One can never speak enough of the virtues, the dangers, the power of shared laughter.

To jealousy, nothing is more frightful than laughter.

The one thing I regret is that I will never have time to read all the books I want to read.

I like men to behave like men - strong and childish.

Writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz. Much of the time life is a sort of rhythmic progression of three characters. If one tells oneself that life is like that, one feels it less arbitrary.

A dress makes no sense unless it inspires men to take it off of you.

At seventeen, you tend to go in for unhappy love affairs.

Of course the illusion of art is to make one believe that great literature is very close to life, but exactly the opposite is true. Life is amorphous, literature is formal.