And no book, and possibly no painting, when it is finished, is ever exactly like the first dream of it.

Honestly, I don't understand why people get so worked up about a little murder!

My New Year’s Eve Toast: to all the devils, lusts, passions, greeds, envies, loves, hates, strange desires, enemies ghostly and real, the army of memories, with which I do battle — may they never give me peace. (New Year's Eve, 1947)

I didn't hang around films. I don't know if I'd ever seen Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes.

If people have bought something of mine, they know by now that I will decline writing it for the movies

He liked the fact that Venice had no cars. It made the city human. The streets were like veins, he thought, and the people were the blood, circulating everywhere.

My imagination functions much better when I don't have to speak to people.