Ordinary life goes on – that has saved many a man’s reason.
He gave her a bright fake smile; so much of life was a putting off of unhappiness for another time. Nothing was ever lost by delay. He had a dim idea that perhaps if one delayed long enough, things were taken out of one’s hands altogether by death.
They are always saying God loves us. If thats love Id rather have a bit of kindness.
Pity is cruel. Pity destroys.
The great advantage of being a writer is that you can spy on people. You’re there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is useful to a writer, you see – every scrap, even the longest and most boring of luncheon parties.
The truth has never been of any real value to any human being – it is a symbol for mathematicians and philosophers to pursue. In human relations kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.
A murderer is regarded by the conventional world as something almost monstrous, but a murderer to himself is only an ordinary man. It is only if the murderer is a good man that he can be regarded as monstrous.
Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought.
Of two hearts one is always warm and one is always cold: the cold heart is more precious than diamonds: the warm heart has no value and is thrown away.
Media is just a word that has come to mean bad journalism.
It is the same in life: sometimes it is more difficult to make a scene than to die.
Most things disappoint till you look deeper.
Success is more dangerous than failure, the ripples break over a wider coastline.
So it always is: when you escape to a desert the silence shouts in your ear.
There is a point of no return, unremarked at the time, in most lives.
A movie is not a book. If the source material is a book, you cannot be too respectful of the book. All you owe to the book is the spirit.
Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it: innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.
Thrillers are like life, more like life than you are.
Never presume yours is a better morality.
Reality in our century is not something to be faced.