the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist.

However you disguise novels, they are always biographies.

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.

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.

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.

I'm scared of him," said Piggy, "and that's why I know him. If you're scared of someone you hate him but you can't stop thinking about him. You kid yourself he's all right really, an' then when you see him again; it's like asthma an' you can't breathe.