A solitary laugh is often a laugh of superiority.

The economy of a novelist is a little like that of a careful housewife who is unwilling to throw away anything that might perhaps serve its turn.

One's life is more formed, I sometimes think, by books than by human beings: it is out of books one learns about love and pain at second hand.

Insecurity twists meanings and poisons trust. In a closely beleaguered city every sentry is a potential traitor.

Oh, I’m not a Berkeleian. I believe my back’s against this wall. I believe there’s a sten gun over there.

Against the beautiful and the clever and the successful, one can wage a pitiless war, but not against the unattractive: then the millstone weighs on the breast.

The border means more than a customs house, a passport officer, a man with a gun. Over there everything is going to be different; life is never going to be quite the same again after your passport has been stamped.