A novel is really like a symphony where instrument after instrument has to come in at its own time, and no other.

You waste life when you waste good food.

I was right not to be afraid of any thief but myself, who will end by leaving me nothing.

Love must be learned again and again... Hate needs no instruction, but waits only to be provoked.

Life comes first, an art not rooted in human experience is not worth a damn, but different kinds of minds have different kinds of experience, and all I ask of any man is validity; and there should be place for every type and kind of mind.

It is as hard to find a neutral critic as it is a neutral country in time of war. I suppose if a critic were neutral, he wouldn't trouble to write anything.

The real sin against life is to abuse and destroy beauty, even one's own even more, one's own, for that has been put in our care and we are responsible for its well-being.