The world is not our imagination but our nightmare, full of inconceivable surprises. - Imre Kertész

My body is foreign to me that body that sustains me and will, ultimately, kill me.

To live and to write, it's all the same, both together, for the pen is my spade; when I look ahead I only look back, when I stare at the paper I only see the past: she crossed that bluish green carpet as if she were crossing the sea because she wanted to talk to me, for she found out that I was "B.", author and literary translator, one of whose "works" had read, and which she definitely wanted to discuss with me, she said, and we talked and talked until we talked ourselves into bed — Good God! — and continued to talk even then, uninterrupted.

Nothing upsets me as much as a shop window jammed full of objects; such windows literally depress, sadden, even demoralize me.