"Growing old's like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven't committed."

“Parents – especially step-parents – are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don't fufill the promise of their early years.”

“Self-love seems so often unrequited.”

“People think because a novel's invented, it isn't true. Exactly the reverse is the case. Because a novel's invented, it is true. Biography and memoirs can never be wholly true, since they can't include every conceivable circumstance of what happened. The novel can do that. The novelist himself lays it down. His decision is binding.”

“here is no greater sign of innate misery than a love of teasing.”

“The whole idea of interviews is in itself absurd – one cannot answer deep questions about what one's life was like – one writes novels about it.”

“He fell in love with himself at first sight and it is a passion to which he has always remained faithful.”