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

Silence sat in the taxi, as though a stranger had got in.

...the power-loving temperament is more dangerous when it either prefers or is forced to operate in what is materially a void. Wehave everything to dread from the dispossessed.

one should discuss one's difficulties only when they are over.

Proust has pointed out that the predisposition to love creates its own objects; is this not also true of fear?

Chance is better than choice; it is more lordly. Chance is God, choice is man.

What is a novel? I say: an invented story. At the same time a story which, though invented has the power to ring true. True to what? True to life as the reader knows life to be or, it may be, feels life to be. And I mean the adult, the grown-up reader. Such a reader has outgrown fairy tales, and we do not want the fantastic and the impossible. So I say to you that a novel must stand up to the adult tests of reality.