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

Only one person in a thousand knows the trick of really living in the present. Most of us spend fifty-nine minutes an hour living in the past, with regret for lost joys or shame for things badly done (both utterly useless and weakening) or in a future which we either long for or dread. . . . There is only one minute in which you are alive, this minute, here and now. The only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle. Which is exactly what it is-a miracle and unrepeatable.

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.

In my firm, we dealt in lies. Advertising is that ... the skilful use of the truth to mislead, to spoil, to debase.

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

For what I have received may the Lord make me truly thankful. And more truly for what I have not received.

A politician is forced to make a habit of noble phrases and optimistic lies. In the end they infect himself.