But no artist, I now realize, can be satisfied with art alone. There is a natural craving for recognition which cannot be gain-said.

There is something about conscious tact that is very irritating.

Self-preservation's a man's first duty. And natives don't mind dying, you know. They don't feel about it as Europeans do.

I learned ... that one can never go back, that one should not ever try to go back - that the essence of life is going forward. Life is really a one way street, isn't it?

The tragedy of life is that people do not change.

Many friends have said to me, 'I never know when you write your books, because I've never seen you writing, or even seen you go away to write.' I must behave rather as dogs do when they retire with a bone; they depart in a secretive manner and you do not see them again for an odd half hour. They return self-consciously with mud on their noses. I do much the same.

Things go entirely differently from the way you planned them.