The hard part about writing a novel is finishing it.

You're an expatriate. You've lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed by sex. You spend all your time talking, not working. You are an expatriate, see? You hang around cafTs.

I would not have thought of eating a meal without drinking a beer.

How little we know of what there is to know.

This was a big storm and he might as well enjoy it. It was ruining everything, but you might as well enjoy it

Now a writer can make himself a nice career while he is alive by espousing a political cause, working for it, making a profession of believing in it, and if it wins he will be very well placed. All politics is a matter of working hard without reward, or with a living wage for a time, in the hope of booty later. A man can be a Fascist or a Communist and if his outfit gets in he can get to be an ambassador or have a million copies of his books printed by the Government or any of the other rewards the boys dream about.

If my Valentine you won't be, I'll hang myself on your Christmas tree.