Writing novels preserves you in a state of innocence - a lot passes you by - simply because your attention is otherwise diverted.

Problems of human behavior still continue to baffle us, but at least in the Library we have them properly filed.

I am 46, and have been for some time past.

You never know what you will learn till you start writing. Then you discover truths you never knew existed.

Death is only a small interruption.

A man can go from being a lover to being a stranger in three moves flat but a woman under the guise of friendship will engage in acts of duplicity which come to light very much later. There are different species of self-justification.

The lessons taught in great books are misleading. The commerce in life is rarely so simple and never so just.