We are all tourists in history, and irony is what we win in wars.

A book is meant not only to be read, but to haunt you, to importune you like a lover or a parent, to be in your teeth like a piece of gristle.

In an age like ours, which is not given to letter-writing, we forget what an important part it used to play in people's lives.

There is something about seeing real people on a stage that makes a bad play more intimately, more personally offensive than any other art form.

We don't simply read books. We become them.

People ... have no idea what a hard job it is for two writers to be friends. Sooner or later you have to talk about each other's work.

Travel is like adultery: one is always tempted to be unfaithful to one's own country. To have imagination is inevitably to be dissatisfied with where you live. There is in men, as Peter Quennell said, "a centrifugal tendency." In our wanderlust, we are lovers looking for consummation.