The automatic reaction of practically any young person is, at once, against authority. That, I think, began in the First World War because of the trenches, and the incompetence of the people on all fronts.

Don't read a book out of its right time for you.

A story is how we construct our experiences.

None of you [men] ask for anything - except everything, but just for so long as you need it.

And it does no harm to repeat, as often as you can, 'Without me the literary industry would not exist: the publishers, the agents, the sub-agents, the sub-sub-agents, the accountants, the libel lawyers, the departments of literature, the professors, the theses, the books of criticism, the reviewers, the book pages- all this vast and proliferating edifice is because of this small, patronized, put-down and underpaid person.'

Borrowing is not much better than begging; just as lending with interest is not much better than stealing.

Coincidences are God's way of remaining anonymous.