The writer probably knows what he meant when he wrote a book, but he should immediately forget what he meant when he's written it.

I suppose I'd have to say that my favourite author is Homer. After Homer's Ilaid, I'd name The Odyssey, and then I'd mention a number of plays of Euripides.

Experimental novels are sometimes terribly clever and very seldom read. But the story that appeals to the child sitting on your knee is the one that satisfies the curiosity we all have about what happened then, and then, and then. This is the final restriction put on the technique of telling a story. A basic thing called story is built into the human condition. It's what we are; it's something to which we react.

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against this as a method, but it is not what English writers do.

He doesn't mind if he dies... indeed, he would like to die; but yet he fears to fall. He would welcome a long sleep; but not at the price of falling to it.

Philosophy and Religion-what are they when the wind blows and the water gets up in lumps?

We're not savages. We're English.