We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist.

The first thing you have to consider when writing a novel is your story, and then your story - and then your story!

What the artist wishes to do — as far as you are concerned — is to take you out of yourself. As far as he is concerned, he wishes to express himself.

Yes, a war is inevitable. Firstly, there's you fellows who can't be trusted. And then there's the multitude who mean to have bathrooms and white enamel. Millions of them; all over the world. Not merely here. And there aren't enough bathrooms and white enamel in the world to go round.

The war had made a man of him! It had coarsened him and hardened him. There was no other way to look at it. It had made him reach a point at which he would no longer stand unbearable things.

Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you.

The world is full of places to which I want to return