Observing human variety can give pleasure, but so too can human sameness.

I was the basest of readers. All I wanted was my own world, and myself in it, given back to me in artful shapes and accessible form.

He who hesitates is not only lost, but miles from the next exit.

He had never before felt so self-consciously young, nor experienced such appetite, such impatience for the story to begin.

I find it very difficult to talk about unwritten works. It's never useful to start putting words casually around the flimsiest of notions. I finished Saturday only in late November and I'm now in the rather pleasant stage of traveling, reading and waiting.

My needs were simple I didn't bother much with themes or felicitous phrases and skipped fine descriptions of weather, landscapes and interiors. I wanted characters I could believe in, and I wanted to be made curious about what was to happen to them. Generally, I preferred people to be falling in and out of love, but I didn't mind so much if they tried their hand at something else. It was vulgar to want it, but I liked someone to say 'Marry me' by the end.

By concentrating on what is good in people, by appealing to their idealism and their sense of justice, and by asking them to put their faith in the future, socialists put themselves at a severe disadvantage.