The novel does not simply recount experience, it adds to experience.

Some people are molded by their admirations, others by their hostilities.

Fantasy is toxic: the private cruelty and the world war both have their start in the heated brain.

Yes, writing a novel, my boy, is like driving pigs to market - you have one of them making a bolt down the wrong lane; another won't get over the right stile.

Wariness had driven away poetry; from hesitating to feel came the moment when you no longer could.

With three or more people there is something bold in the air: direct things get said which would frighten two people alone and conscious of each inch of their nearness to one another. To be three is to be in public - you feel safe.

Solitary and farouche people don't have relationships; they are quite unrelatable. If you and I were capable of being altogether house-trained and made jolly, we should be nicer people, but not writers.