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.

All good novelists have bad memories. What you remember comes out as journalism; what you forget goes into the compost of the imagination.

I could never have been a pacifist. To kill a man was surely to grant him an immeasurable benefit. Oh yes, people always, everywhere, loved their enemies. It was their friends they preserved for pain and vacuity.

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

Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector.

My two fingers on a typewriter have never connected with my brain. My hand on a pen does. A fountain pen, of course. Ball-point pens are only good for filling out forms on a plane.

So much of life [is] a putting-off of unhappiness for another time. Nothing [is] ever lost by delay.