The final test of a work of art is not whether it has beauty, but whether it has power.

Journalism allows its readers to witness history; fiction gives its readers an opportunity to live it.

To be a writer is to sit down at one's desk in the chill portion of every day, and to write; not waiting for the little jet of the blue flame of genius to start from the breastbone - just plain going at it, in pain and delight. To be a writer is to throw away a great deal, not to be satisfied, to type again, and then again, and once more, and over and over...

My two major faults are that I row too long and pick up too many women

The second stage set in ten or fifteen days after the bombing. The main symptom was falling hair. Diarrhoea and fever, which in some cases went as high as 106, came next.

When the writing is really working, I think there is something like dreaming going on. I don't know how to draw the line between the conscious management of what you're doing and this state. . . . I would say that it's related to daydreaming. When I feel really engaged with a passage, I become so lost in it that I'm unaware of my real surroundings, totally involved in the pictures and sounds that that passage evokes.

To my great surprise, I never heard anyone cry out in the disorder, even though they suffered in great agony. They died in silence, with no grudge, setting their teeth to bear it. All for the country!