Bernard-Henri Levy Quotes

When I stop working the rest of the day is posthumous. I'm only really alive when I'm writing.

It's just a freak of fate that I'm paid to write, not paying to print my own books - but I'd be doing it anyway: it's my life.

I've been writing since I was six years old. It's hard to imagine stopping. I would hate to think that I've already written my best book.

The ant is knowing and wise, but he doesn't know enough to take a vacation.

I love to be busy. I'm envious of people who are able to take their spare time and relax. All I like to do is work. Perhaps it's lingering Calvinist guilt?

And unless you have that sense of being creative, people think you're just working all the time.

They talk of the dignity of work. The dignity is in leisure.

If I ever stop working, I might have a problem. But I never seem to be able to stop working.

I'm still writing in my old age. And still loving it. It fills my days. Writing is my salvation. I just get up in the morning, and I'm in this world that I scratch out and begin again and write over - and then suddenly it's lunchtime, and I'm back.

I'm a writer. That's who I am, at my core. I'm a writer, and then I learned production and administration, along the way. I feel like most people can learn it because production and the administration part is all about logic, and it's all about learning rules and budgets.

I think that's what turns young men and women into writers - the happiness you discover living in books.

I love writing. I've always written journals. I loved writing the book on living alone.

I feel like one can have all of that as a writer; you're writing, you're reading, you're talking to interesting and intelligent people. Your life is structured around whatever book you're writing, and so is your reading and so are many of your conversations.

There's never a time when I'm not working. I don't take vacations.

Pay attention to your passions. They are the key to starting and finishing the book you are meant to write. I don't believe in talent. I believe in passion.

I've lost my writing skills since college. I couldn't write a book. It would take a long time.

I don't resent working long hours. I shouldn't- I'm the one who set up my life this way. I love to work. It's the thing that I get the most satisfaction out of-nd probably what I do best. Not that I don't enjoy days off. I love vacations and loafing around. But I think much of the world has the wrong idea of working. It's one of the good things in life. The feeling of accomplishment is more real and satisfying than finishing a good meal- or looking at one's accumulated wealth.

The age of the book is not over. No way... But maybe the age of some books is over. People say to me sometimes 'Steve, are you ever going to write a straight novel, a serious novel' and by that they mean a novel about college professors who are having impotence problems or something like that. And I have to say those things just don't interest me. Why? I don't know. But it took me about twenty years to get over that question, and not be kind of ashamed about what I do, of the books I write.

Writing sustains me. But wouldn’t it be better to say it sustains this kind of life? Which doesn't mean life is any better when I don’t write. On the contrary, it is far worse, wholly unbearable, and inevitably ends in madness. This is, of course, only on the assumption that I am a writer even when I don’t write - which is indeed the case; and a non-writing writer is, in fact, a monster courting insanity.

I feel like people who become writers are people who have been saved by books.

I feel very rich when I have time to write and very poor when I get a regular paycheck and no time at my real work.

Most of the time when I'm in Australia I'm not really working, it seems. I'm just at home, getting on with renovating my house or writing music or whatever. So I get back to doing all the stuff that I naturally do. Whereas if I'm away working, that's all there is to do, is to concentrate on the work.

My first company was MicroSolutions. I worked 20 hours a day. I didn't take a vacation for 7 years. I didn't even take the time to read a fiction book. It was all about work. When I sold it, I promised myself I would never wear a watch and only wear a suit to weddings, funerals and to meet the President.

Actually I'm writing as best I can, in order to keep the momentum and the career there, but I want to live.

Angela Carter's fiction blew me away and really instilled a passion for writing, bolstered by Vladimir Nabokov. But in general, I can't point to any one thing. I just always loved books and writing.