A novel is like a gland pill - it nips off the cream of my hysterics and gets them running on track in a book where they belong instead of rioting all over my person.

I cannot exist without the oxygen of laughter.

You woke in the morning with the weight of doom on your head. You lay with eyes shut wondering why you dreaded the day; was it a debt, was it a lost love? -and then you remembered the nightmare....This was no time for beauty, for love, or private future....There was no future; everyone waited, marked time, waited. For what?

A writer's business is minding other people's business ... all the vices of the village gossip are the virtues of the writer.

The basis of tragedy is man's helplessness against disease, war and death; the basis of comedy is man's helplessness against vanity (the vanity of love, greed, lust, power).

There is really one city for everyone just as there is one major love.

Joe and Jojo and I had lovely day together. I love Joe so much - more and more.