That instinct for human character that is perhaps inherent in an imaginative writer.

They can print statistics and count the populations in hundreds of thousands, but to each man a city consists of no more than a few streets, a few houses, a few people. Remove those few and a city exists no longer except as a pain in the memory, like a pain of an amputated leg no longer there.

Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it: innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.

He had stylized himself--life was easier that way. He had chosen a physical mould just as writer chooses a technical form.

One has no talent. I have no talent. It's just a question of working, of being willing to put in the time.

He entered the territory of lies without a passport for return.

The great advantage of being a writer is that you can spy on people. You're there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is useful to a writer, you see - every scrap, even the longest and most boring of luncheon parties.