I can't write if someone else is in the house, not even the cleaning woman.

But there were too many points at which the other self could invade the self he wanted to preserve, and there were too many forms of invasion: certain words, sounds, lights, actions his hands or feet performed, and if he did nothing at all, heard and saw nothing, the shouting of some triumphant inner voice that shocked him and cowed him.

I don't want to know movie directors. I don't want to be close to them. I don't want to interfere with their work. I don't want them to interfere with mine.

For neither life nor nature cares if justice is ever done or not.

one blow in anger [would] kill, probably, a child from aged two to eight. Those over eight would take two blows to kill.

Honesty, for me, is usually the worst policy imaginable.

I find the public passion for justice quite boring and artificial.