He liked the fact that Venice had no cars. It made the city human. The streets were like veins, he thought, and the people were the blood, circulating everywhere.

My imagination functions much better when I don't have to speak to people.

Everything human is alien to me.

Life is a long failure of understanding ... a long, mistaken shutting of the heart.

Each book is, in a sense, an argument with myself, and I would write it, whether it is ever published or not.

One situation – maybe one alone – could drive me to murder: family life, togetherness.

And no book, and possibly no painting, when it is finished, is ever exactly like the first dream of it.

I have Graham Greene's telephone number, but I wouldn't dream of using it. I don't seek out writers because we all want to be alone.

How easy it was to lie when one had to lie!

For neither life nor nature cares if justice is ever done or not.

It always gets late with you. - Is that a compliment?

If you want your prayers answered, get up off your knees and do something about them.

I think that what you’ve got to do is discover the essential truth of the situation, and have a point of view about it.

The death then of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world, and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover.

So when a great man dies For years beyond our ken The light he leaves behind him lies Upon the paths of men.

I believe myself capable of great things.

Sincere biblical repentance is as much a work of grace as not sinning in the first place. To err is human, to make progress is divine.

It was as if the power and loneliness of the vampires' world had combined with the group oriented puppy-pile world of the shapeshifters and made something new.

Our character is determined by what we do if every restraint were removed.

February brings the rain, Thaws the frozen lake again.

Common foreign policy is completely unnecessary. The various European countries have widely differing priorities, goals and prejudices. It would be wrong to force them all to follow the same course.