In 1952, I had gone to England on a literary pilgrimage, but what I also saw, even at that distance from the blitz, were bombed-out ruins and an enervated society, while the continent was still, psychologically, in the grip of its recent atrocities.

Paradise is only for those who have already been there.

In the compact between novelist and reader, the novelist promises to lie, and the reader promises to allow it.

In 1952, I had gone to England on a literary pilgrimage, but what I also saw, even at that distance from the blitz, were bombed-out ruins and an enervated society, while the continent was still, psychologically, in the grip of its recent atrocities.

Wars, invented and organized by the highest available consciousnesses (do the worms go to war? do the fish? do the paramecia?), are the planet's chief source and cause of torment.

Why do men carry guns and build prison camps, when the nurturing earth is made for freedom?

If we had to say what writing is, we would have to define it essentially as an act of courage.