You'll get back to where you came from.

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

Honestly, I haven't the time to read contemporary writers. I know this is awful, but in the main it is true.

I do like people to read the books twice, because I write my novels about ideas which concern me deeply and I think are important, and therefore I want people to take them seriously. And to read it twice of course is taking it seriously.

How can you expect to be rescued if you don’t put first things first and act proper?

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.

Only one novel is a novel: that is a successful novel.