To lose somebody is to lose not only their person but all those modes and manifestations into which their person has flowed outwards; so that in losing a beloved one may find so many things, pictures, poems, melodies, places lost too: Dante, Avignon, a song of Shakespeare's, the Cornish sea.

Remember that the secret of all learning is patience and that curiosity is not the same thing as a thirst for knowledge.

Being in love is an exhausting business.

Man's creative struggle, his search for wisdom and truth, is a love story.

Literature could be said to be a sort of disciplined technique for arousing certain emotions.

I hate solitude but I am afraid of intimacy. The substance of my life is a private conversation with myself and to turn it into a dialogue would be equivalent to self-destruction. The company I need is the company which a pub or a cafe will provide. I have never wanted a communion of souls.

Good writing is full of surprises and novelties, moving in a direction you don't expect.