Women scheme when they are weak, they lie out of fear. Men scheme when they are strong, they lie out of arrogance.

As I've explained to my wife many times, you have to kill your wife or mistress to get on the front page of the papers.

If the writer were more like a reader, he’d be a reader, not a writer. It’s as uncomplicated as that.

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.

One of the troubles is this: the heart isn't heart-shaped.

There is a German word, Sehnsucht, which has no English equivalent; it means 'the longing for something'. It has Romantic and mystical connotations; C.S. Lewis defined it as the 'inconsolable longing' in the human heart for 'we know not what'. It seems rather German to be able to specify the unspecifiable. The longing for something - or, in our case, for someone.

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