Towards midnight the rain ceased and the clouds drifted away, so that the sky was scattered once more with the incredible lamps of stars.

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

Ralph... would treat the day's decisions as though he were playing chess. The only trouble was that he would never be a very good chess player.

Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!

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

It may be -- I hope it is -- redemption to guess and perhaps perceive that the universe, the hell which we see for all its beauty, vastness, majesty, is only part of a whole which is quite unimaginable.

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.