I have always tried to write in a simple way, using down-to-earth and not abstract words.

The lake and the mountains have become my landscape, my real world.

We are all potentially characters in a novel--with the difference that characters in a novel really get to live their lives to the full.

I am at home everywhere, and nowhere. I am never a stranger and I never quite belong.

I saw Mussolini tirelessly contemplate a parade of thousands of young men.

If each one of us could make just one other happy, the whole world would know happiness.

I'm a bit like a sponge. When I'm not writing I absorb life like water. When I write I squeeze the sponge a little - and out comes, not water but ink.

If your vision of the world is of a certain kind you will put poetry in everything, necessarily.

For 30 years I have tried to make it understood that there are no criminals.

Writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness. I don't think an artist can ever be happy.

I write fast, because I have not the brains to write slow.

The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.

The misnomer is that satirists are pessimists, or even misanthropes, but usually it is just a way to unlock human potential.

Carelessness about our security is dangerous, carelessness about our freedom is also dangerous.

Punishment as punishment is not admissible unless the offender has had the freewill to select his course.

The cancer of time is eating us away

Whether by pill or invasive surgery, abortion is never good for women.

it's dreadful when two people's senses of humor are antagonistic. I don't believe there's any bridging that gulf!

There are certainly great cities in America that don't have ATP and WTA events. Our fans are very provincial. They want American champions.

Growth in any individual European country has to be the result of policies for growth pursued in that country consistent with budgetary discipline.

Animals are happier than humans because they're like furry little existentialists, all living in the moment. Their collective motto: live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking pelt.