The not-self cannot have the bad, meaning they of the government and the judges and the schools cannot allow the bad because they cannot allow the self.

But we were all feeling that bit shagged and fagged and fashed, it having been an evening of some small energy expenditure.

To be left alone is the most precious thing one can ask of the modern world.

The writer's life seethes within but not without.

I didn't think; I experimented.

Suddenly, I viddied what I had to do, and what I had wanted to do, and that was to do myself in; to snuff it, to blast off for ever out of this wicked, cruel world. One moment of pain perhaps and, then, sleep forever, and ever and ever.

A man can write one book that can be great, but this doesn't make him a great writer-just the writer of a great book. . . I think a writer has to extend very widely, as well as plunge very deep, to be a great novelist.