The novel is very much alive, indeed. In Toronto at the Sixth Annual International Festival of Authors (October 1985) I listened to novelists by the dozen.

I am here; and here is nowhere in particular.

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.

The trouble was, if you were a chief you had to think, you had to be wise.

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

Nothing is so impenetrable as laughter in a language you don't understand.

I believe man suffers from an appalling ignorance of his own nature. I produce my own view in the belief that it may be something like the truth.