To reject censorship after studying the risks involved is very well. To reject it ex cathedra, in the tones of Calvin pronouncing a dogma, eyes and mind closed to the possible consequences, the even marginally possible, is to make things too comfortable for oneself.

the sex even in serious pornography has less singularity than the mating of squirrels.

The critic's hankering to be law-giver rather than servant of literature is irrepressible.

All writers who can claim to be called 'living' must be political in a sense. They must have what the Quakers call a concern to understand what is happening in the world, and must engage themselves, in their writing, to promote no comfortable lies, of the sort which people will pay well to be told rather than the truth.

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

My mind is not suited to go much into company.

The past is able to close round certain moments, as if they were seeds, and deliver them again fresh and living in the present.