It's always the idle habits you acquire which you will regret.

I knew that nobody but a luckless man could ever need a doctor in the face of a cyclone.

I learned little save that most of the deeds, good and bad both, incurring opprobrium or plaudits or reward either, within the scope of man's abilities, had already been performed and were to be learned about only from books.

People need trouble - a little frustration to sharpen the spirit on, toughen it.

The past is never dead. It's not even past.

A writer is trying to create believable people in credible moving situations in the most moving way he can.

It is my ambition to be, as a private individual, abolished and voided from history, leaving it markless.