That terrible mood of depression of whether it's any good or not is what is known as The Artist's Reward.

I'm not going to get into the ring with Tolstoy.

When you work hard all day with your head and know you must work again the next day what else can change your ideas and make them run on a different plane like whisky?

It wasn't by accident that the Gettysburg address was so short. The laws of prose writing are as immutable as those of flight, of mathematics, of physics.

For what are we born if not to aid one another?

In the spring mornings I would work early while my wife still slept. The windows were open wide and the cobbles of the street were drying after the rain.

A wine shop was open and I went in for some coffee. It smelled of early morning, of swept dust, spoons in coffee-glasses and the wet circles left by wine glasses.