When I sit at my table to write, I never know what it's going to be until I'm under way. I trust in inspiration, which sometimes comes and sometimes doesn't. But I don't sit back waiting for it. I work every day.

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.

This thought strengthened in me my belief that all men, without exception, deserve to be pitied, if only because they are alive.

War has become an affair of machines...and soldiers are little more than clever mechanics.

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

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