The past exudes legend: one can't make pure clay of time's mud. There is no life that can be recaptured wholly; as it was.Which is to say that all biography is ultimately fiction.

What suffering has taught me is the uselessness of suffering.

To any writer: Teach yourself to work in uncertainty. Many writers are anxious when they begin, or try something new. Even Matisse painted some of his Fauvist pictures in anxiety. Maybe that helped him to simplify. Character, discipline, negative capability count. Write, complete, revise. If it doesn't work, begin something else.

Charity you can give even when you haven't got.

A writer has to surprise himself to be worth reading.

A man is an island in the only sense that matters, not an easy way to be. We live in mystery, a cosmos of separate lonely bodies, men, insects, stars. It is all loneliness and men know it best.

No use fanning up hot coals when you have to walk across them.