We are our memory, we are that chimerical museum of shifting shapes, that pile of broken mirrors.

Like all writers, he measured the achievements of others by what they had accomplished, asking of them that they measure him by what he envisaged or planned.

To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely.

At the beginning of their careers many writers have a need to overwrite. They choose carefully turned-out phrases; they want to impress their readers with their large vocabularies. By the excesses of their language, these young men and women try to hide their sense of inexperience. With maturity the writer becomes more secure in his ideas. He finds his real tone and develops a simple and effective style.

Captivated by its discipline, humanity forgets and goes on forgetting that it is the discipline of chess players, not of angels.

The central problem of novel-writing is causality.

Fame is a form, perhaps the worst form, of incomprehension.