There are moments when we are incapable of exchanging a single word with anybody…it’s beyond us… - Patrick Modiano

Children are liable to expect more from life than their parents, and faced with adversity their reaction is more violent. They go farther, much farther than their parents, and, thereafter, their parents are unable to protect them.

All that would remain of me would be the raincoat I’d been wearing, rolled on a bench.

I always think twice before reading the biography of a writer I admire. Biographers sometimes latch onto small details, unreliable eyewitness accounts, character traits that appear puzzling or disappointing – all of which is like the crackling sound that messes with radio transmissions, making the music and the voices impossible to hear. It is only by actually reading his books that we gain intimacy with a writer. This is when he is at his best and he is speaking to us in a low voice without any of the static.