In war, one cannot say what one feels.

Now, being in Africa, I was hungry for more of it, the changes of the seasons, the rains with no need to travel, the discomforts that you paid to make it real, the names of the trees, of the small animals, and all the birds, to know the language and have time to be in it and to move slowly.

There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the time comes.

I do not need to get used to your silence. I already know it. I quite possibly love all of it.

I'm always reading books-as many as there are. I ration myself on them so that I'll always be in supply.

The further you go in writing the more alone you are. Most of your best and oldest friends die. Others move away. You do not see them except rarely, but you write and have much the same contact with them as though you were together at the café in the old days. You exchange comic, sometimes cheerfully obscene and irresponsible letters, and it is almost as good as talking. But you are more alone because that is how you must work and the time to work is shorter all the time and if you waste it you feel you have committed a sin for which there is no forgiveness.

To make war all you need is intelligence. But to win you need talent and material.