The nation in arms is virtually a communist state: the people must be paid wages and fed and protected and regimented behind the lines as much as on the front. Minds must be kept loyal and at the right pitch of hate, so that successive drafts of fighters are accepted without murmurings. Letters and newspapers must be censored while the propaganda mill grinds on. As for decisions of strategy and overall command, they must please many masters: dissenters in the cabinet, the heads of the allied states and public opinion. Hence failures must be disguised or concealed.

[T]hat is the triumph of history - truth absolute is not at hand; the original with which to match the copy does not exist.

By the time I was 9, I had the conviction that everybody in the world was an artist except plumbers or people who delivered groceries.

It is always some illusion that creates disillusion, especially in the young, for whom the only alternative to perfection is cynicism.

Above all, do not talk yourself out of good ideas by trying to expound them at haphazard meetings.

We may complain and cavil at the anarchy which is the amateurs natural element, but in soberness we must agree that if the amateur did not exist it would be necessary to invent him.

The danger that may really threaten (crime fiction) is that soon there will be more writers than readers