A novelist can shift view-point if it comes off. ... Indeed, this power to expand and contract perception (of which the shifting view-point is a symptom), this right to intermittent knowledge - I find one of the great advantages of the novel-form ... this intermittence lends in the long run variety and colour to the experiences we receive.

It is the function of the novelist to reveal the hidden life at its source: to tell us more about Queen Victoria than could be known, and thus to produce a character who is not the Queen Victoria of history.

A critic has no right to the narrowness which is the frequent prerogative of the creative artist.

It is easy to face Death and Fate, and the things that sound so dreadful. It is on my muddles that I look back with horror--on thethings that I might have avoided.

One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life.

But Humanity, in its desire for comfort, had over-reached itself. It had exploited the riches of nature too far. Quietly and complacently, it was sinking into decadence, and progress had come to mean the progress of the Machine.

Characters must not brood too long. They must not waste time running up and down ladders in their own insides.