"My wife's a lot younger than me ... thirty years difference . . . You should never marry a woman a lot younger than you ... Never ..."
- Patrick Modiano
"I noticed a phenomenon that doesn't often happen toa man: several women turned round as he passed them."
"Many years afterwards, we attempt to solve puzzles that were not mysteries at the time and we try to decipher half-obliterated letters from a language that is too old and whose alphabet we don't even ..."
"Did you see her again in France?" I asked him.”“No. When I got to France, she was already dead. She committed suicide ...”“Why?”“She often told me she was frightened of getting old..."
"But I am a patient man. I can wait for hours in the rain."
"When he was younger, he used the slightest opportunity to slip away from people, without his being able to understand very clearly why he did so: a longing to break free and to breathe in the fresh ai..."
"How much longer would we go on being old young people? They wavedgoodbye to me. I was moved by Annette. She and I wereexactly the same age, and she'd become one of those slightlyfaded Danish beauties ..."
"Something—he wondered later if it was simply his youth—something that had weighed upon him until that moment broke off him, the way a piece of rock slides slowly into the sea and disappears in a spray..."
"Yes, this man had the persistence of an insect."
"One should never expect anyone to reply to one's questions."