What is a novel if not a conviction of our fellow men's existence strong enough to take upon itself a form of imagined life clearer than reality and whose accumulated verisimilitude of selected episodes puts to shame the pride of documentary history.

All creative art is magic, is evocation of the unseen in forms persuasive, enlightening, familiar and surprising.

The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.

A task, any task, undertaken in an adventurous spirit acquires the merit of romance.

It’s extraordinary how we go through life with eyes half shut, with dull ears, with dormant thoughts. Perhaps it’s just as well; and it may be that it is this very dullness that makes life to the incalculable majority so supportable and so welcome.

The discovery of America was the occasion of the greatest outburst of cruelty and reckless greed known in history.

Give me the right word and the right accent and I will move the world.