Letters crossing in the post, unfamiliar tunes heard three times in one day, the way that blows of fate descend upon the same bowed shoulders, and the beams of good fortune glow perpetually upon the blessed. Fairy tales, as I said, are lived out daily. There is far more going on in the world than we ever imagine.

One friend dies and we remain indifferent; another dies, perhaps less intimate, and we see ourselves as dead, and weep, mourn, tear our hair or find ourselves caught up in the madness of the wake, competing with others as to who was closest, now suffers most.

If you put a woman in a man's position, she will be more efficient, but no more kind.

If you wake up in the morning with a great sense of the things that have to be done in the day in order to get through to the next day, you lose the sense of the day as any kind of end in itself.

Of course you have to believe in destiny; that everything is sheer chance is an intolerable notion.

Instinct' usually just means our conditioning to believe this or believe that, without thinking to investigate.

Writers are always a great nuisance to publishers. If they could do without them, they would.