The worst fault of the working classes is telling their children they're not going to succeed, saying: There is life, but it's not for you.

Hell must be a place where you are only allowed to read what you agree with.

When... I told my father I wanted to be a writer, he had asked me to consider my unfortunate wife, who would have me about the house all day 'wearing a dressing gown, brewing tea and stumped for words'.

The main aim of education should be to send children out into the world with a reasonably sized anthology in their heads so that, while seated on the lavatory, waiting in doctors' surgeries, on stationary trains or watching interviews with politicians, they may have something interesting to think about.

Marriage is like pleading guilty to an indefinite sentence. Without parole.

I suppose that writers should, in a way, feel flattered by the censorship laws. They show a primitive fear and dread at the fearful magic of print.

The greatest horrors of our world are committed by people who are totally sincere.