How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home.

When the switch fell I could feel it upon my flesh; when it welted and ridged it was my blood that ran, and I would think with each blow of the switch: Now you are aware of me! Now I am something in your secret and selfish life, who have marked your blood with my own for ever and ever.

Only when the clock stops does time come to life

A writer is congenitally unable to tell the truth and that is why we call what he writes fiction.

Idleness breeds our better virtues.

Time is a fluid condition which has no existence except in the momentary avatars of individual people. There is no such thing as was - only is.

We could live like counts. ... If all that money is out there, I might as well hack a little on the side and put the novel off.