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

Death never mattered at those times - in the early days I even used to pray for it: the shattering annihilation that would prevent for ever the getting up, the putting on of clothes, the wathchign her torch trail across to the opposite side of the common like the tail-light of a low car driving away.

Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.

This (Vietnam) was a land of rebellious barons. It was like Europe in the Middle Ages. But what were the Americans doing here? Columbus had not yet discovered their country.

Grief and disappointment are like hate: they make men ugly with self-pity and bitterness. And how selfish they make us too.

Lust is not the worst thing. It is because any day, any time, lust may turn into love that we have to avoid it. And when we love our sin then we are damned indeed.

It is a great danger for everyone when what is shocking changes.