I am astonished at the ease with which uninformed persons come to a settled, a passionate opinion when they have no grounds for judgment.

While I am on, I can discipline myself to that extent. When I am off, I can't discipline myself at all. On the other hand, when I am off, there are so many things I like doing, it doesn't really matter.

What could be safer than the bus center with its lamps and wheels?

My father was very musical, and music plays quite a large part in my life.

Put simply the novel stands between us and the hardening concept of statistical man. There is no other medium in which we can live for so long and so intimately with a character. That is the service a novel renders.

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

I really feel the novel has certain conveniences about it and has something so fundamental about it you could almost say that as long as there is paper, there is going to be the novel.