Belfastas uncivilised as ever--savage black mothers in houses of dark red brick, friendly manufacturers too drunk to entertain you when you arrive. It amuses me till I get tired.

English literature is a flying fish.

The sadness of the incomplete, the sadness that is often Life, but should never be Art.

The historian records, but the novelist creates.

... there are shadows because there are hills.

I do like Christmas on the whole.... In its clumsy way, it does approach Peace and Goodwill. But it is clumsier every year.

There's never any great risk as long as you have money.