But maybe half a lie is worse than a real lie.

If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.

You are what you are. It is my opinion that trouble in the world comes from people who do not know what they are, and pretend to be something they're not.

How often the rich like to play at being poor. A rather nasty game, I've always thought.

It is not good to see people who have been pretending strength all their lives lose it even for a minute.

Intellectuals can tell themselves anything, sell themselves any bill of goods, which is why they were so often patsies for the ruling classes in 19th-century France and England, or 20th-century Russia and America.

Nothing you write, if you hope to be good, will ever come out as you first hoped.