History isn't the lies of the victors, as I once glibly assured Old Joe Hunt; I know that now. It's more the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious or defeated.

Had my life increased, or merely added to itself? There had been addition and subtraction in my life, but how much multiplication?

Novels tell us the most truth about life: what it is, how we live it, what it might be for, how we enjoy and value it, and how we lose it.

I hate the way the English have of not being serious about being serious, I really hate it.

Well, to be honest I think I tell less truth when I write journalism than when I write fiction.

Reading is a majority skill but a minority art.

we must be precise with love, its language and its gestures. If it is to save us, we must look at it as clearly as we should learn to look at death