We have so much time and so little to do. Strike that, reverse it.

Bunkum and tummyrot! You'll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that. Would Columbus have discovered America if he'd said 'What if I sink on the way over? What if I meet pirates? What if I never come back?' He wouldn't even have started.

Candy is dandy but liqueur is quicker.

Titchy little snapperwhippers like you should not be higgling around with an old sage and onions who is hundreds of years more than you.

I doubt I would have written a line ... unless some minor tragedy had sort of twisted my mind out of the normal rut.

The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it. It happens to be a fact that nearly every writer of fiction in the world drinks more whisky than is good for him. He does it to give himself faith hope and courage. A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul and that I am sure is why he does it.

The secret of life', he said, 'is to become very very good at somethin' that's very very 'ard to do.