I was young and not gloomy and there were always strange and comic things that happened in the worst time.

He was violating the second rule of the two rules for getting on well with people that speak Spanish; give the men tobacco and leave the women alone

Sometimes you know the story. Sometimes you make it up as you go along and have no idea how it will come out.

Every damn thing is your own fault, if you are any good.

You are so brave and quiet I forget you are suffering.

I drank a bottle of wine for company. It was Chateau Margaux. It was pleasant to be drinking slowly and to be tasting the wine and to be drinking alone. A bottle of wine was good company.

A serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer. A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl.