If faces were different when lit from above or below -- what was a face? What was anything?

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.

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.

I am not a theologian or a philosopher. I am a story teller.

At the moment of vision, the eyes see nothing.

We've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages. We're English, and the English are best at everything.

I mean, if we're concerned genuinely with writing, I think we probably get on with our work. I think this is very true of English writers, but perhaps not so true of French writers, who seem to read each other passionately, extensively, and endlessly, and who then talk about it to each other - which is splendid.