It is easy to sympathize at a distance,' said an old gentleman with a beard. 'I value more the kind word that is spoken close to my ear.

I distrust Great Men. They produce a desert of uniformity around them and often a pool of blood too, and I always feel a little man's pleasure when they come a cropper.

Like all her friends, I miss her greatly...But...I am sure there is no case for lamentation...Virginia Woolf got through an immense amount of work, she gave acute pleasure in new ways, she pushed the light of the English language a little further against darkness. Those are facts.

This element of surprise or mystery the detective element as it is sometimes rather emptily called is of great importance in a plot.

Men were not gods after all, but as human and as clumsy as girls.

Expansion, that is the idea the novelist must cling to, not completion, not rounding off, but opening out.

It was unbearable, and he thought again, 'How unhappy I am!' and became happier.