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.

Sometimes I see myself reflected too closely in other men for comfort, and then I have an enormous wish to believe in the saints, in heroic virtue.

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.

All good novelists have bad memories.

It was like having a box of chocolates shut in the bedroom drawer. Until the box was empty it occupied the mind too much.

I have never understood why people who can swallow the enormous improbability of a personal God boggle at a personal Devil.

In our hearts there is a ruthless dictator, ready to contemplate the misery of a thousand strangers if it will ensure the happiness of the few we love.