in my experience one thing you don't learn from is anything anyone set up to be a lesson; what you are to know you pick up as you go along.

without fiction, either life would be insufficient or the winds from the north would blow too cold.

What I have found is, anything one keeps hidden should now and then be hidden somewhere else.

It is not helpful to help a friend by putting coins in his pockets when he has got holes in his pockets.

In 'real life' everything is diluted; in the novel everything is condensed.

Meetings that do not come off keep a character of their own. They stay as they were projected.

If you look at life one way, there is always cause for alarm.