Our language has become a tired and inefficient thing in the hands of journalists and writers who have nothing to say.

Imagination should be used, not to escape reality but to create it.

If I'd stayed on in London and carried on going to literary parties, it would have wrecked me as a writer.

As a young man I was scornful about the supernatural but as I have got older, the sharp line that divided the credible from the incredible has tended to blur; I am aware that the whole world is slightly incredible

The complex develops out of the simple.

If you can train your senses to perceive the movement of the minute hand of a clock, what is to stop you for training them to 'slow down' when you look at a tree or a puddle?

The "passion for incredulity" can produce as much self-deception as the uncritical will to believe.