[On Paris:] I do not know any city so beautiful and you can be unhappy there and notice your unhappiness less, having the city to look at.

After a lifetime of war-watching, I see war as an endemic human disease, and governments are the carriers.

If I practised sex, out of moral conviction, that was one thing; but to enjoy it... seemed a defeat.

Gradually I came to realize that people will more readily swallow lies than truth, as if the taste of lies was homey, appetizing: a habit.

Why do people talk of the horrors of old age? It's great. I feel like a fine old car with the parts gradually wearing out, but I'm not complaining,... Those who find growing old terrible are people who haven't done what they wanted with their lives.

A broken heart is such a shabby thing, like poverty and failure and the incurable diseases which are also deforming. I hate it and am ashamed of it, and I must somehow repair this heart and put it back into its normal condition, as a tough somewhat scarred but operating organ.

If I were a first rate writer, I wouldn't mind a bit. What does depress me is this: it is so desperately hard and so obsessive and so lonely to write that, in return for all this work, one would like a little self satisfaction. And that is never going to come, for the simple reason that I do not deserve it. I cannot be a good enough writer. You see? I call it grim. But the future looks awfully clear to me.