What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.

The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature. Books did not care who was reading them or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal, herself included. Literature, she thought, is a commonwealth; letters a republic.

I saw someone peeing in Jermym Street the other day. I thought, is this the end of civilization as we know it? Or is it simply someone peeing in Jermyn Street?

Why is it always the "intelligent" people who are socialists?

I lack what the English call character, by which they mean the power to refrain.

I write plays about things that I can't resolve in my mind. I try to root things out.

You don't put your life into your books, you find it there.