The poverty of yesterday was less squalid than the poverty we purchase with our industry today. Fortunes were smaller then as well.

I know that when I think of myself as being utterly worn out, when I think that somehow I have nothing more to write, then something is happening within me. And, in due course, it bubbles up; it comes to the surface, and then I do my best to listen. But there's nothing mystical about all this. I suppose all writers do the same.

I wonder if I have woven through dreams the sexual strife. I don't think so. But after all, my business is to weave dreams. I suppose I may be allowed to choose the material.

Loneliness does not worry me; life is difficult enough, putting up with yourself and with your own habits.

I think of myself as being an ethical man, but I don't try to teach ethics. I have no message. I know little about contemporary life. I don't read a newspaper. I dislike politics and politicians. I belong to no party whatever. My private life is a private life. I try to avoid photography and publicity.

Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone.

When writers die they become books, which is, after all, not too bad an incarnation.