Are we savages or what?
There is, they say, no fool like an old fool.
Novelists do not write as birds sing, by the push of nature. It is part of the job that there should be much routine and some daily stuff on the level of carpentry.
Nothing is so impenetrable as laughter in a language you don't understand.
Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!
Graham Greene at 82 years old was still writing, and I don't think anyone can deny the force, the expertise, and the unique quality of his writing, if you take his complete oeuvre.