Claude Simon

Simon is a prominent French writer (born in 1913; won Nobel Prize in 1985). From his interview in The Paris Review (Spring 1992):

(about his early education)

INTERVIEWER: What was the name of the boarding school?

SIMON: Stanislas College, which is actually a grammar school in Paris. My mother was very pious and had wanted me to receive a religious education.

INTERVIEWER: Did this institution have any effect on you emotionally or intellectually?

SIMON: I became an atheist. That, it seems to me, is evident in my books.

(Later....)

SIMON: Shakespeare wrote: Life is "A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." That is also my way of thinking. Except that for me life is not only full of sound and fury. It also has butterflies, flowers, art... (ellipsis in original).