I knew words were like chains, they held me back . . . the act of description taints the description.

It is only when our characters and events begin to disobey us that they begin to live.

My hatred of crowds, the obviousness of crowds, of anything en masse. Is this why I like little-known books? A general desire to escape the main world.

Piers is always going on about how he hated Stowe. As if that solves everything, as if to hate something means it can't have affected you.

You must make, always. You must act, if you believe something. Talking about acting is like boasting about pictures you're going to paint. The most terrible bad form.

You put up with your voice and speak with it because you haven't any choice. But it's what you say that counts.

Think. In a minute from now you could be saying, I risked death. I threw for life, and I won life. It is a very wonderful feeling. To have survived.