It's the hardest thing in the world to go on being aware of someone else's pain.

Another person's life, observed from the outside, always has a shape and definition that one's own life lacks.

Cut a chrysalis open, and you will find a rotting caterpillar. What you will never find is that mythical creature, half caterpillar, half butterfly, a fit emblem for the human soul, for those whose cast of mind leads them to seek such emblems. No, the process of transformation consists almost entirely of decay.

Murder is only killing in the wrong place.

It's the hardest thing in the world to go on being aware of someone else's pain.

Culturally, the First World War is the war that stands in for other wars.

Looking straight at the world is part of your duty as a writer.