If you're going to have a character appear in a story long enough to sell a newspaper, he'd better be real enough that you can smell his breath.

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

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.

You have to wait together - for a week, for a year, for a lifetime, before the final intimate conversation may be attained ... and exhausted. So that ... That in effect was love.

But responsibility hardens the heart. It must.

I couldn't regard myself as personally repulsive. No man can, or, if he ever comes to do so, that is the end of him.

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.