Françoise Sagan quotes

Art must take reality by surprise.

The illusion of art is to make one believe that great literature is very close to life, but exactly the opposite is true. Life is amorphous, literature is formal.

Instead of leaving for Chile with a band of gangsters, one stays in Paris and writes a novel. That seems to me the great adventure.

When the book is finished I immediately lose interest in the characters. And I never make moral judgments.

I never learned anything at all from them but I was astonished by their imagination and fecundity. They saw intentions I never had.

And I wouldn't change a word. What's done is done.

For me writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz.