In books, as in life, there are no second chances. On second thought: its the next work, still to be written, that offers the second chance.

I wanted to use what I was, to be what I was born to be - not to have a 'career', but to be that straightforward obvious unmistakable animal, a writer.

History ... isn't simply what has happened. It's a judgment on what has happened.

It is useless either to hate or to love truth - but it should be noticed.

Of comic novels that have quaffed the elixir of 'classic': Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm.

Godlessness invariably produces vulgarity. Civilization is the product of belief.

Whoever mourns the dead mourns himself.