The mysterious does not spell itself out in capital letters, as many writers believe, but is always between, an interstice.

The more a book is like an opium pipe, the more the Chinaman reader is satisfied with it and tends to discuss the quality of the drug rather than its lethargic effects.

For me the thing that signals a great story is what we might call its autonomy, the fact that it detaches itself from its author like a soap bubble blown from a clay pipe.

I think it is vanity to want to put into a story anything but the story itself.

All profound distraction opens certain doors. You have to allow yourself to be distracted when you are unable to concentrate.

Nothing is more comical than seriousness understood as a virtue that has to precede all important literature