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

Because the world to-day is so constructed that no one can do what he would like to do, and he is forced, instead, to do what others wish him to do. Because the question of money always intrudes—into what we do, into what we are, into what we wish to become, into our work, into our highest aspirations, even into our relations with the people we love!

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.

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

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

The less one notices happiness, the greater it is.

When you aren't sincere you need to pretend, and by pretending you end up believing yourself; that's the basic principle of every faith.