The peculiar foreign superstition that the English do not like love, the evidence being that they do not talk about it.

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.

The wrongs of childhood and upbringing have made a large and obsessional contribution to autobiography and the novel.

The peculiar foreign superstition that the English do not like love, the evidence being that they do not talk about it.

Writing enlarges the landscape of the mind.

The Canadian spirit is cautious, observant and critical where the American is assertive.

[London] is sentimental and tolerant. The attitude to foreigners is like the attitude to dogs: Dogs are neither human nor British, but so long as you keep them under control, give them their exercise, feed them, pat them, you will find their wild emotions are amusing, and their characters interesting.