With a novel, which takes perhaps years to write, the author is not the same man he was at the end of the book as he was at the beginning. It is not only that his characters have developed-he has developed with them, and this nearly always gives a sense of roughness to the work: a novel can seldom have the sense of perfection which you find in Chekhov's story, The Lady with the Dog.

Eternity is said not to be an extension of time but an absence of time.

Sooner or later... one has to take sides. If one is to remain human.

Success is more dangerous than failure, the ripples break over a wider coastline.

Would the world be in the mess it is if we were loyal to love and not to countries?

I measured love by the extent of my jealousy.

If two people loved, they slept together; it was a mathematical formula, tested and proved by human experience.