It was a pleasant cafe, warm and clean and friendly, and I hung up my old water-proof on the coat rack to dry and put my worn and weathered felt hat on the rack above the bench and ordered a cafe au lait. The waiter brought it and I took out a notebook from the pocket of the coat and a pencil and started to write.

Clearly I miss Him, having been brought up in religion. But now a man must be responsible to himself.

As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.

You see I'm trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across, not just to depict life, or criticize it, but to actually make it alive.

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

Il faut d'abord durer (First One Must Endure).

I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.