Today the discredit of words is very great. Most of the time the media transmit lies. In the face of read more

Today the discredit of words is very great. Most of the time the media transmit lies. In the face of an intolerable world, words appear to change very little. State power has become congenitally deaf, which is why --but the editorialists forget it --terrorists are reduced to bombs and hijacking.

I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all.

I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all.

Writers seldom choose as friends those self-contained characters who are never in trouble, never unhappy or ill, never make mistakes, read more

Writers seldom choose as friends those self-contained characters who are never in trouble, never unhappy or ill, never make mistakes, and always count their change when it is handed to them.

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

To write is to make oneself the echo of what cannot cease speaking -- and since it cannot, in order read more

To write is to make oneself the echo of what cannot cease speaking -- and since it cannot, in order to become its echo I have, in a way, to silence it. I bring to this incessant speech the decisiveness, the authority of my own silence.

People want you to be a crazy, out-of-control teen brat. They want you miserable, just like them. They don't want read more

People want you to be a crazy, out-of-control teen brat. They want you miserable, just like them. They don't want heroes; what they want is to see you fall.

In America only the successful writer is important, in France all writers are important, in England no writer is important, read more

In America only the successful writer is important, in France all writers are important, in England no writer is important, and in Australia you have to explain what a writer is.

When I was born I was so surprised I didn't talk for a year and a half.

When I was born I was so surprised I didn't talk for a year and a half.

I quote others only in order the better to express myself. •Michel De Montaigne Certain brief sentences read more

I quote others only in order the better to express myself. •Michel De Montaigne Certain brief sentences are peerless in their ability to give one the feeling that nothing remains to be said. •Jean Rostand I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.