Youth goes caparisoned in immortality.

I don't see why escapist literature shouldn't also be a work of art.

I still occasionally need to struggle but I now fear it less. The weapons I fight it with are also my consolations: books, music, food, wine, nature.

Creativity doesn't flourish in an atmosphere of despotism, coercion and fear.

A man who lives with nature is used to violence and is companionable with death. There is more violence in an English hedgerow than in the meanest streets of a great city.

There are two options for any society: total prohibition as in a totalitarian state, or total license. Both avoid the ardours of decision. Both have the attraction of certainty. The difficult option is to decide where the line should be drawn and this, surely, is the responsiblity of any civilized and democratic country.

All fiction is largely autobiographical and much autobiography is, of course, fiction.