Then you have people coming up like Malcolm Bradbury, a relatively young writer who deals with the academic scene and deals with it, I think, brilliantly.

One's intelligence may march about and about a problem, but the solution does not come gradually into view. One moment it is not. The next it is there.

I mean, if we're concerned genuinely with writing, I think we probably get on with our work. I think this is very true of English writers, but perhaps not so true of French writers, who seem to read each other passionately, extensively, and endlessly, and who then talk about it to each other - which is splendid.

Percival was mouse-coloured and had not been very attractive even to his mother.

He who rides the sea of the Nile must have sails woven of patience.

The trouble was, if you were a chief you had to think, you had to be wise.

I'm not a critic so much of my own writing. People must make up their own minds over that.