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

Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over.

You make something from things that have happened and from things that exist and from all things that you know and all those you cannot know, and you make something through your invention that is truer than anything true and alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality.

Don't you drink? I notice you speak slightingly of the bottle. I have drunk since I was fifteen and few things have given me more pleasure.

They arrested us after breakfast.

I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it underwater for every part that shows.

I say that is wine," Brett held up her glass. "We ought to toast something. 'Here's to royalty.'" "This wine is too good for toast-drinking, my dear. you don't want to mix emotions up with a wine like that. you lose the taste." Brett's glass was empty.