He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense.

When he [Joe Lewis] was asked upon his retirement about his long career, Joe sweetly summed it up in just ten words. 'I did the best I could with what I had'.

Literature isn't a moral beauty contest. Its power arises from the authority and audacity with which the impersonation is pulled off; the belief it inspires is what counts.

Nothing has a more sinister effect on art than the artist's desire to prove that he's good. The terrible temptation of idealism! You must achieve mastery over your idealism, over your virtue as well as over your vice, aesthetic mastery over everything that drives you to write in the first place - your outrage, your politics, your grief, your love!

If you read a novel in more than two weeks, you don't read the novel really.

Should you protect profits? Yes. But run for the hills? No.

The secret to living in the rush of the world with a minimum of pain is to get as many people as possible to string along with your delusions.