I don't admire Freud as much as some people do. Imagine Shakespeare being aware of the Oedipal complex when he wrote Hamlet. It would have been a disaster.

More Quotes by Nathalie Sarraute

One can't write for all readers. A poet cannot write for people who don't like poetry.

Suspicion is one of the morbid reactions by which an organism defends itself and seeks another equilibrium.

It's a question of not copying the masters, to look for something, good or bad, for oneself. To enter this liberated state of mind, one cannot copy the others.

One can't write without having read - you have to read before beginning to write - and universities offer a very good opportunity to read.

Those who live in a world of human beings can only retrace their steps.

Television has lifted the manufacture of banality out of the sphere of handicraft and placed it in that of a major industry.