Though I am a Catholic, a professing one, I have serious doubts about the survival of the human personality after death.

I am not alone at all, I thought. I was never alone at all. And that, of course, is the message of Christmas. We are never alone. Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, the world seemingly most indifferent. For this is still the time God chooses.

My relatives used to laugh when I talked of being a writer.

Contrary to general opinion, women are not so sentimental as men, but are much more hardheaded.

Men who retain irony are not to be trusted. They can't always resist an impulse to tickle themselves.

'He is very ugly,' said his mother.

Tel Aviv appeals to me.