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

Beethoven for listening; Liszt, Chopin, and Beethoven for playing as well as Bach and Prokofiev and so on. If I kept going, this list would spiral. It's as wide as literature; in fact, it is probably wider.

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.

He found himself understanding the wearisomeness of this life,where every path was an improvisation and a considerable part of one's waking life was spent watching one's feet.

Sleep is when all the unsorted stuff comes flying out as from a dustbin upset in a high wind.

There's a kinship among men who have sat by a dying fire and measured the worth of their life by it.

The pile of guts was a black blob of flies that buzzed like a saw. After a while these flies found Simon. Gorged, they alighted by his runnels of sweat and drank. They tickled under his nostrils and played leapfrog on his thighs. They were black and iridescent green and without number; and in front of Simon, the Lord of the Flies hung on his stick and grinned. At last Simon gave up and looked back; saw the white teeth and dim eyes, the blood—and his gaze was held by that ancient, inescapable recognition.