Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way.

Outside every fat man there is an even fatter man trying to close in.

We should be wrong to demand that a critic must stay on the point all the time; it is enough if he remains in orbit around it.

A bad review may spoil your breakfast, but you shouldn't allow it to spoil your lunch.

Work was like cats were supposed to be: if you disliked and feared it and tried to keep out if its way, it knew at once and sought you out and jumped on your lap and climbed all over you to show how much it loved you. Please God, he thought, don't let me die in harness.

When that ineffable compound of depression, sadness (these two are not the same), anxiety, self-hatred, sense of failure and fear for the future begins to steal over you, start telling yourself that what you have is a hangover. You are not sickening for anything, you have not suffered a minor brain lesion, you are not all that bad at your job, your family and friends are not leagued in a conspiracy of barely maintained silence about what a s**t you are, you have not come at last to see life as it really is and there is no use crying over spilt milk.

Self criticism must be my guide to action, and the first rule for its employment is that in itself it is not a virtue, only a procedure.