People have obsessions and fears and passions which they don't admit to. I think every character is interesting and has extremes. It's the novelist privilege to see how odd everyone is.

The most potent and sacred command which can be laid upon any artist is the command: wait.

until I have been able to bury my head so deep in dear London that I can forget that I have ever been away I am inconsolable.

I am not famous for anything in particular. I am just famous.

Falling out of love is very enlightening. For a short while you see the world with new eyes.

Art is the final cunning of the human soul which would rather do anything than face the gods.

It was like hunting fish with an underwater gun, a sport which he had once been foolish enough to try. At one moment there is the fish - graceful, mysterious, desirable and free - and the next moment there is nothing but struggling and blood and confusion.