Lovemaking surely must be, for human beings at our present state of development, one of the more private enterprises. Who would want a witness to that entire self-abandonment and helplessness?

Those who give the orders are not the ones to die The people who are doing the work and the fighting and the dying, and those who are doing the talking, are not all the same people.

I always knew one thing, that life is made bearable and possible and liveable by the relations of one human being to another, the individual love and gentleness between persons, or in any case, the unbreakable bond that grows and fastens lives together in all sorts of mysterious ways.

I think I've only spent about ten percent of my energies on writing. The other ninety percent went to keeping my head above water.

I will never again attempt to tell any young person what to do - the really gifted don't need advice and the others can't take it.

The real sin against life is to abuse and destroy beauty, even one's own.

we know that the Furies do not come uninvited.