when two people unite, kindness must be mutual, or shocking things will happen.

But poetry is not to be lived, except for the few to whom it is more important than self-preservation.

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

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

The novel will never die, but it will keep changing and evolving and taking different shapes.

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.

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.