Yes, one uses what one knows, but autobiography means something else. I should never be able to write a real autobiography; I always end by falsifying and fictionalizing—I’m a liar, in fact. That means I’m a novelist, after all. I write about what I know.

The less one notices happiness, the greater it is.

...my boredom might be described as a malady affecting external objects and consisting of a withering process; an almost instantaneous loss of vitality--just as though one saw a flower change in a few seconds from a bud to decay and dust.

Our ideals, laws and customs should be based on the proposition that each generation in turn becomes the custodian rather than the absolute owner of our resources - and each generation has the obligation to pass this inheritance on in the future.

Good writers are monotonous, like good composers. They keep trying to perfect the one problem they were born to understand.

I like to compare my method with that of painters centuries ago, proceeding from layer to layer.

You can't think on purpose about somebody or something. Either you think about them naturally or you don't think at all.