He lay back for a little in his bed thinking about the smells of food . . . of the intoxicating breath of bakeries and dullness of buns. . . . He planned dinners, of enchanting aromatic foods . . . endless dinners, in which one could alternate flavour with flavour from sunset to dawn without satiety, while one breathed great draughts of the bouquet of old brandy.

He had no strength for any other war than his own solitary struggle to keep alive.

There is no ordinary run of mankind, there are only individuals who are totally different. And whether a man is naked and black and stands on one foot in Sudan or is clothed in some kind of costume in a bus in England, they are still individuals of entirely different characters.

Most writers in the course of their careers become thick-skinned and learn to accept vituperation, which in any other profession would be unimaginably offensive, as a healthy counterpoise to unintelligent praise.

I can't bare you when you're not amusing.

The Welsh are the only nation in the world that has produced no graphic or plastic art, no architecture, no drama. They just sing. Sing and blow down wind instruments of plated silver.

My unhealthy affection for my second daughter has waned. Now I despise all my seven children equally.