Living as we do in an age of noise and bluster, success is now measured accordingly. We must all be seen, and heard, and on the air.

If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.

He stole horses' you'll say to yourself, 'and he didn't care for women; and but for my pride I'd have been with him now.

There was never an accident.Rebecca was not drowned at all. I killed her.I shot Rebecca in the cottage in the cove.I carried her body to the cabin, and took the boat out that night and sunk it there, where they found it today.It's Rebecca who's lying dead there on the cabin floor.Will you look into my eyes and tell me that you love me now?

I thought of all those heroines of fiction who looked pretty when they cried, and what a contrast I must make with a blotched and swollen face, and red rims to my eyes.

If there’s one thing that makes a man sick, it’s to have his ale poured out of an ugly hand.

Writing every book is like a purge; at the end of it one is empty ... like a dry shell on the beach, waiting for the tide to come in again.