Patrick Modiano

She had the right idea, old man, don't you think - to disappear before it gets too late?

You were right to tell me that in life it is not the future which counts, but the past.

Nice is a city of ghosts and specters, but I hope not to become one of them right away.

Then she lowered her arm and the gate closed behind her. That arm suddenly falling and the metallic clank of the gate shutting made me understand that from one moment to another one can lose heart.

In writing this book, I send out signals, like a lighthouse beacon in whose power to illuminate the darkness, alas, I have no faith. But I live in hope.

For me the autumn has never been a sad season. The dead leaves and the increasingly shorter days have never suggested the end of anything, but rather an expectation of the future. In Paris, there is an electricity in the air in October evenings at nightfall. Even when it is raining. I do not feel low at that hour of the day, nor do I have the sense of time flying by. I have the impression that everything is possible. The year begins in the month of October.