I think that those few words were my greatest mistake.
Real love is a pilgrimage. It happens when there is no strategy, but it is very rare because most people are strategists.
You never know what you will learn till you start writing. Then you discover truths you never knew existed.
Problems of human behavior still continue to baffle us, but at least in the Library we have them properly filed.
Great writers are the saints for the godless.
That sun, that light had faded, and she had faded with them. Now she was as grey as the season itself.
Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature.
I suppose what one wants really is ideal company and books are ideal company.
Always let them think of you as singing and dancing.
Time misspent in youth is sometimes all the freedom one ever has.
A man can go from being a lover to being a stranger in three moves flat but a woman under the guise of friendship will engage in acts of duplicity which come to light very much later. There are different species of self-justification.
To remain pure, a novel has to cast a moral puzzle. Anything else is mere negotiation.
Writing has freed me from the despair of living.
Life is a pilgrimage and if you don’t play by the rules you don’t find the Road to Damascus, you find the Crown of Thorns.
The evening passes somehow; I watch television with Nancy, or I write. It is difficult, not having a family, and it is difficult to explain. I always go to bed early. And I am always ready for Monday morning, that time that other people dread.
Satire is dependent on strong beliefs, and on strong beliefs wounded.
It is best to marry for purely selfish reasons.
I think you always feel braver in another language.