I write for myself and strangers. The strangers, dear Readers, are an afterthought.

A nice war is a war where everybody who is heroic is a hero, and everybody more or less is a hero in a nice war. Now this war is not at all a nice war.

There are so many ways of earning a living and most of them are failures.

She always says she dislikes the abnormal, it is so obvious. She says the normal is so much more simply complicated and interesting.

It is extraordinary that when you are acquainted with a whole family you can forget about them.

The only thing that is different from one time to another is what is seen and what is seen depends upon how everybody is doing everything.

A conversation in English in Finnish and in French can not be held at the same time nor with indifference ever or after a time.