It is not merely that people must die and people must suffer, if not here, then there. But what is dreadful is that the world goes on and people go on being stupidly cruel - in the old ways and all the time.

I know nothing - nothing in the world - of the hearts of men. I only know that I am alone - horribly alone.

It was an odd friendship, but the oddnesses of friendships are a frequent guarantee of their lasting texture.

The object of the novelist is to keep the reader entirely oblivious of the fact that the author exists - even of the fact he is reading a book.

If you hunch your shoulders too long against a storm your shoulders will grow bowed.

New York is large, glamorous, easy-going, kindly and incurious, but above all it is a crucible - because it is large enough to be incurious.

They were simple, earnest people, those early Victorians, and had not yet learnt the trick of avoiding disturbing thoughts and sights.