And did I not think then, What nonsense it is to suppose one man so different from another when all that life really boils down to is getting a decent cup of coffee and room to stretch out in?

Every year, when you're a child, you become a different person.

The stories are not autobiographical, but they're personal in that way. I seem to know only the things that I've learned. Probably some things through observation, but what I feel I know surely is personal.

Country manners. Even if somebody phones up to tell you your house is burning down, they ask first how you are.

For years and years I thought that stories were just practice, till I got time to write a novel.

Love removes the world for you, and just as surely when it's going well as when it's going badly.

Now that I think of it, she looked splendid. I wish I had met her somewhere else. I wish I had appreciated her as she deserved. I wish that everything had gone differently.