The truth has never been of any real value to any human being - it is a symbol for mathematicians and philosophers to pursue. In human relations kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.

One never knows enough about characters in real life to put them into novels. One gets started and then, suddenly, one can not remember what toothpaste they use; what are their views on interior decoration, and one is stuck utterly. No, major characters emerge; minor ones may be photographed.

Eternity is said not to be an extension of time but an absence of time.

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.

When I began to write our story down, I thought I was writing a record of hate, but somehow the hate has got mislaid and all I know is that in spite of her mistakes and her unreliability, she was better than most. It's just as well that one of us should believe in her: she never did in herself.

Hope was an instinct only the reasoning human mind could kill. An animal never knew despair.

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