To the sun Rome owes its underlying glow, and its air called golden - to me, more the yellow of white wine; like wine it raises agreeability to poetry.

A novel which survives, which withstands and outlives time, does do something more than merely survive. It does not stand still. It accumulates round itself the understanding of all these persons who bring to it something of their own. It acquires associations, it becomes a form of experience in itself, so that two people who meet can often make friends, find an approach to each other, because of this one great common experience they have had.

People in love, in whom every sense is open, cannot beat off the influence of a place.

Not only is there no question of solitude, but in the long run we may not choose our company.

The silence of a shut park does not sound like country silence: it is tense and confined.

Style is the thing that's always a bit phony, and at the same time you cannot write without style.

That is partly why women marry - to keep up the fiction of being in the hub of things.