“One of the delights known to age, and beyond the grasp of youth, is that of Not Going.”

“When I first began to write fiction, I didn't think I was a comic writer; I thought I was a serious writer. I was surprised when the first novel I wrote was regarded as a funny novel.”

“I'm a natural clown, I suppose, in writing, and one has to accept that; I can't do anything about it. I have written one or two novels which are not specifically funny. I wrote a study of Sh...”

“When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.”

“We can destroy what we have written, but we cannot unwrite it.”

“The sweetest and most heavenly of activities partake in some measure of violence - the act of love, for instance; music, for instance. You must take your chance, boy. The choice has been all...”

“Well, everything's a lesson, isn't it? Learning all the time, as you could say.”

“What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?”

“When we're healthy we respond to the presence of the hateful with fear and nausea.”