Real life seems to have no plots.

I never agree with the compliments paid to it. It is not a great healer. It is an indifferent and perfunctory one. Sometimes it does not heal at all. And sometimes when it seems to, no healing has been necessary.

Most of the pleasure of making a book would go if it held nothing to be shared by other people. I would write for a few dozen people, and sometimes it seems that I do so, but I would not write for no-one.

The plot is not very important to me, though a novel must have one, of course. It's just a line to hang the washing on.

What concerns anyone so much as the time he has to live?

My youth is escaping without giving me anything it owes me.

We none of us talk to people as we do behind their backs.