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 work is with me when I wake up in the morning; it is with me while I eat my breakfast in bed and run through the newspaper, while I shave and bathe and dress.

I'd rather be in trouble for having done something than for not having done anything.

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

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

I must be like the princess who felt the pea through seven mattresses; each book is a pea.

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.