True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one's self; but the point is not only to get out - you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand.

There's no more usual basis of union than mutual misunderstanding.

The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life.

To kill a human being is, after all, the least injury you can do him.

Experience was to be taken as showing that one might get a five-pound note as one got a light for a cigarette; but one had to check the friendly impulse to ask for it in the same way.

I adore adverbs; they are the only qualifications I really much respect.

Writing is not primarily escape, but use.