Life is too tragic for sadness: Let us rejoice.

The hawk's cry is as sharp as its beak.

My sole literary ambition is to write one good novel, then retire to my hut in the desert, assume the lotus position, compose my mind and senses, and sink into meditation, contemplating my novel.

Among politicians and businessmen, *Pragmatism* is the current term for 'To hell with our children.'

All we have, it seems to me, is the beauty of art and nature and life, and the love which that beauty inspires.

Style: There is something in too much verbal felicity (as in Joyce or Nabokov or Borges) that can betray the writer into technique for the sake of technique.

In marriage, the occasional catastrophic crisis is easier to manage than the daily routine.