The ratio of literacy to illiteracy is constant, but nowadays the illiterates can read and write.

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.

Dictatorships are one-way streets. Democracy boasts two-way traffic.

An uncertain evil causes anxiety because, at the bottom of one's heart, one goes on hoping till the last moment that it may not be true; a certain evil, on the other hand, instills, for a time, a kind of dreary tranquillity.

I don't think it's possible to write a good novel around a negative personality.

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

A writer survives in spite of his beliefs.