Most writers enjoy two periods of happiness when a glorious idea comes to mind and, secondly, when a last page has been written and you haven't had time to know how much better it ought to be.

It is good fiction, so largely ignored now, that brings us so much closer to the real facts.

We don't live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish. Good night.

The point is to be good-to be sensitive and sincere.

Those no-sooner-have-I-touched-the-pillow people are past my comprehension. There is something bovine about them.

Much of writing might be described as mental pregnancy with successive difficult deliveries.

We should like to have some towering geniuses, to reveal us to ourselves in colour and fire, but of course they would have to fit into the pattern of our society and be able to take orders from sound administrative types.