A writer's problem does not change. He himself changes and the world he lives in changes but his problem remains the same. It is always how to write truly and having found what is true, to project it is such a way that it becomes a part of the experience of the person who reads it.

I have a rotten habit of picturing the bedroom scenes of my friends.

Your blood coagulates beautifully.

The sea is the same as it has been since before men ever went on it in boats.

But Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there.

Intelligence is so damn rare and the people who have it often have such a bad time with it that they get bitter or propagandistic and then it's not much use.

No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in. ... I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things