For many imaginative writers, working for the press is a fact of their life. But it's best not to like it too much.

A novel should be a book of questions, not a book of answers.

Busyness, I feel increasingly, is the writer's curse and downfall. You read too much and write too readily, you become cut off from your inner life, from the flow of your own thoughts, and turned far too much towards the outside world.

[T]he heart is like any other organ, you can weigh it on a scale.

I think I would have been a reasonably good lawyer. I have a faculty for making sense of mountains of information.

It is better not to try people, not to force them to desperation. Make them prosper; out of superfluidity, they will be generous. Full bellies breed gentle manners. The pinch of famine makes monsters.

I think if the monarchy were removed tomorrow, it wouldn't have a huge effect on the national mind-set.