Language is a mixture of statement and evocation.

The novelist's--any writer's--object is to whittle down his meaning to the exactest and finest possible point. What, of course, isfatal is when he does not know what he does mean: he has no point to sharpen.

[A writer] should try not to be too far, personally, below the level of his work.

Spoilt pleasure is a sad, unseemly thing; you can only bury it.

Reason can never reconcile one to life: nothing allays the wants one cannot explain.

I know that I have in my make-up layers of synthetic experiences, and that the most powerful of my memories are only half true.

Dialogue should show the relationships among people.