One thing should be put firmly. Where people have commented on that novel [The Paper Men], they generally criticize the poor academic, Rick L. Tucker, who is savaged by the author, Wilfred Barclay. I don't think people have noticed that I have been far ruder about Barclay than I have been about Tucker. Tucker is a fool, but Barclay is a swine. The author really gets his come-uppance.

I know there isn't no beast—not with claws and all that, I mean—but I know there isn't no fear, either." Piggy paused. "Unless—" Ralph moved restlessly. "Unless what?" "Unless we get frightened of people.

I play the piano passionately and inaccurately. Indeed, I worked out the other day that of my seventy-five years; I have spent at least one year sitting on a piano stool.

I hope my books make statements about our general condition.

I suppose drama can either take the place of a novel or can be very closely allied with it. It's quite customary to turn a successful novel into a film or a television series because you can dramatize and pictorialize a novel.

If faces were different when lit from above or below -- what was a face? What was anything?

I wouldn't have thought that the techniques of story-telling, which is what the novel is after all, can vary much because there are two things involved.There's a story and there's a listener, whose attention you have to keep. Now the only way in which you can keep a reader's attention to a story is in his wanting to know what is going to happen next. This puts a fairly close restriction on the method you must use.