A whim, a passing mood, readily induces the novelist to move hearth and home elsewhere. He can always plead work as an excuse to get him out of the clutches of bothersome hosts.

The lucky man is he who knows how much to leave to chance.

When a man who is drinking neat gin starts talking about his mother he is past all argument.

There is no other way of writing a novel than to begin at the beginning at to continue to the end.

Novel writing wrecks homes.

Everything was in stark and dreadful contrast with the trivial crises and counterfeit emotions of Hollywood, and I returned to England deeply moved and emotionally worn out.

A man who writes for a living does not have to go anywhere in particular, and he could rarely afford to if he wanted.