I am fully intelligent only when I write. I have a certain amount of small-change intelligence, which I carry round with me as, at any rate in a town, one has to carry small money, for the needs of the day, the non-writing day. But it seems to me I seldom purely think ... if I thought more I might write less.

The best that an individual can do is to concentrate on what he or she can do, in the course of a burning effort to do it better.

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

To walk into history is to be free at once, to be at large among people.

When I read a story, I relive the moment from which it sprang. A scene burned itself into me, a building magnetized me, a mood orseason of Nature's penetrated me, history suddenly appeared to me in some tiny act, or a face had begun to haunt me before I glanced at it.

Solitary and farouche people don't have relationships; they are quite unrelatable.

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