Roughly, the action of a character should be unpredictable before it has been shown, inevitable when it has been shown. In the first half of a novel, the unpredictability should be the more striking. In the second half, the inevitability should be the more striking.

Story involves action. Action towards an end not to be foreseen (by the reader) but also towards an end which, having been reached, must be seen to have been from the start inevitable.

Autumn arrives in early morning, but spring at the close of a winter day.

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

All your youth you want to have your greatness taken for granted; when you find it taken for granted, you are unnerved.

The innocent are so few that two of them seldom meet - when they do meet, their victims lie strewn all round.

Only in a house where one has learnt to be lonely does one have this solicitude for things. One's relation to them, the daily seeing or touching, begins to become love, and to lay one open to pain.