Fiction and poetry are the only way one can stop time and give an account of an experience and nail it down so that it lasts for ever.

We all drew on the comfort which is given out by the major works of Mozart, which is as real and material as the warmth given up by a glass of brandy.

Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.

The adventure is over. Everything gets over, and nothing is ever enough. Except the part you carry with you.

If I do not do sensible things about investments I shall spend my old age in a workhouse, where nobody will understand my jokes.

Great music is in a sense serene; it is certain of the values it asserts.

Time spent in a casino is time given to death, a foretaste of the hour when one's flesh will be diverted to the purposes of the worm and not of the will.