Because of the influence of the cinema, most reports or stories of violence are so pictorial that they lack content or meaning. The camera brings them to our eyes, but does not settle them in our minds, nor in time.

A touch of science, even bogus science, gives an edge to the superstitious tale.

I am under the spell of language, which has ruled me since I was 10.

The detective novel is the art-for-art's-sake of our yawning Philistinism, the classic example of a specialized form of art removed from contact with the life it pretends to build on.

Because of the influence of the cinema, most reports or stories of violence are so pictorial that they lack content or meaning. The camera brings them to our eyes, but does not settle them in our minds, nor in time.

Queen Victoria - a mixture of national landlady and actress.

Criticism changes with the fashion of the time. A story is always a story.