Aphorisms are bad for novels. They stick in the reader's teeth.

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.

The more I like a book, the more reluctant I am to turn the page. Lovers, even book lovers, tend to cling. No one-night stands or "reads" for them.

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.

Either a writer doesn't want to talk about his work, or he talks about it more than you want.

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.