People have been saying the novel is dead for as far back as I can remember. The novel will never die, but it will keep changing and evolving and taking different shapes. Storytelling, which is the basis of the novel, has always existed and always will.

Looking back into childhood is like looking into a semi-transparent globe within which people and places lie embedded. A shake - and they stir, rise up, circle in inter-weaving groups, then settle down again.

[On Ian Fleming:] The trouble with Ian is that he gets off with women because he can't get on with them.

anything that becomes a cult, or a mass movement, loses its moral and spiritual value. The crusade has to be personal, individual. As soon as it becomes collective it loses its purpose.

How long, I wonder, will ignorance spell purity and knowledge shame?

One should always act from one's inner sense of rhythm.

One can present people with opportunities. One cannot make them equal to them.