a writer's first duty is to be clear. Clarity is an excellent virtue. Like all virtues it can be pursued at ruinous cost. Paid, so far as I am concerned, joyfully.

Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.

... I used words without precautions. I wanted to disappear into them, I fled into the bovaryism of the writer trying to create an effect.

In Europe, war is a disease which has been in the family for generations: no one is surprised when it makes another leap. Even the patient only attends to it with part of his mind.

If we are to survive on this planet, there must be compromises.

If the novel is dying, I see no chance that dismembering it will revive it.

... the whole of society in Washington is to some degree political. It is like no other capital city known to me, in that political thinking, the whole business, technical and personal, of politics, is not diluted by an equal interest in art, industry, amusement, anything you like. I don't meant that these are non-existent in Washington -- only that they are subdued to the ruling passion.