The waves have the habit of going forward and then flowing back..

While on the level of civil rights many things have changed decisively for the better, on the level of attitudes and mentality there's still a long w….

To leave a book is like leaving the better part of oneself..

Aging has brought me greater liberty in fiction. When I was young I was harder on myself. I wrote with an idea of absolute seriousness..

The future is created through memory..

Above all else she mustn't think that using her body will help her attain her goal. Men use women who play seductively, and then they look down on th….

Friendship is a form of love. In fact, you don't know how it starts or why. It is subject to the caprices of time. It can grow or die without a reaso….

Falling in love with a story is like falling in love with a person. It tends to occupy your life, your thoughts. You can't do anything else for a lon….

A woman has to demonstrate in every moment to be thirty times better than a man, to gain trust and to be considered. So, she has to be tenacious, com….

Characters simply come and find me. They sit down, I offer them a coffee. They tell me their story and then they almost always leave. When a characte….

What strikes me most of all in Christian culture, which is supposed to be concerned with the rights of the weakest, is the lack of regard toward anim….

In a novel there's not much autobiography. There are characters in transit. Naturally, I can project something of my experiences onto the characters,….

A winter without snow seems depressing, lacking..

Since the journey is a metaphor - the most ambiguous and seductive of metaphors, we tell ourselves - it can also be born of immobility. There is no n….

I also really loved the sea when I was young, when I lived in Sicily, but unfortunately the sea here has been reduced to a trash dump. It's a horribl….

It's easier to change a law than an age-old mentality. Deep down, many prejudices, many hostilities, many fears persist. But if we take a look at all….

A painter's hand has a thirst for thieving, it steals from heaven and makes a gift to the memories of men, it feigns eternity and it delights in this….

When I look around me, I see mostly women who are alone, left by their husbands after their kids grew up, for a younger woman, which is the most comm….

Something struck me in Africa, in black Africa, where polygamy is legal: the solitary woman is the rule there, from at an extremely young age, and th….

It's enough for a small betrayal, a distancing, an affirmation of independence to provoke wrath, fear and also hatred from the adult. How many husban….

I consider myself an aware person who is sensitive to injustice..