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

You have the older generation like Iris Murdoch and Angus Wilson who are not as old as Graham Greene, but still are coming on. I dare say anyone who knew the scene better than I know it could fill it in with a very satisfactory supply of novels.

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

Childhood is a disease - a sickness that you grow out of.

Maybe there is a beast… maybe it's only us.

I am by nature an optimist and by intellectual conviction a pessimist.

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.