If [the writer] achieves anything noble, anything enduring, it must be by giving himself absolutely to his material. And this gift of sympathy is his great gift; is the fine thing in him that alone can make his work fine.

I had killed a big snake. I was now a big fellow.

When the eyes of the flesh are shut, the eyes of the spirit are open.

Old men are like that, you know. It makes them feel important to think they are in love with somebody.

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.

William Tavener never heeded ominous forecasts in the domestic horizon, and he never looked for a storm until it broke.

The test of one's decency is how much of a fight one can put up after one has stopped caring, and after one has found out that one can never please the people they wanted to please.