I know only two words of American slang, ‘swell’ and ‘lousy’. I think ‘swell’ is lousy, but ‘lousy’ is swell.

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?

Perhaps it would be better not to be a writer, but if you must, then write.

Britain, which in the years immediately before this war was rapidly losing such democratic virtues as it possessed, is now being bombed and burned into democracy.

If we openly declare what is wrong with us, what is our deepest need, then perhaps the death and despair will by degrees disappear.

Western man is schizophrenic.

There was no respect for youth when I was young, and now that I am old, there is no respect for age, I missed it coming and going.

Our trouble is that we drink too much tea. I see in this the slow revenge of the Orient, which has diverted the Yellow River down our throats.

Living in an age of advertisement, we are perpetually disillusioned. The perfect life is spread before us every day, but it changes and withers at a touch.

We should like to have some towering geniuses, to reveal us to ourselves in colour and fire, but of course they would have to fit into the pattern of our society and be able to take orders from sound administrative types.

When I was young there was no respect for the young, and now that I am old there is no respect for the old. I missed out coming and going.

We pay when old for the excesses of youth.

Many a man is praised for his reserve and so-called shyness when he is simply too proud to risk making a fool of himself.

Accidents, try to change them – it’s impossible. The accidental reveals man.

I know only two words of American slang, ‘swell’ and ‘lousy’. I think ‘swell’ is lousy, but ‘lousy’ is swell.

To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.

The greater part of critics are parasites, who, if nothing had been written, would find nothing to write.

The greatest writers of this age… are aware of the mystery of our existence.

A novelist who writes nothing for 10 years finds his reputation rising. Because I keep on producing books they say there must be something wrong with this fellow.

If you are a genius, you’ll make your own rules, but if not – and the odds are against it – go to your desk no matter what your mood, face the icy challenge of the paper – write.

I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.

She was a handsome woman of forty-five and would remain so for many years.

Marriage is like paying an endless visit in your worst clothes.

I never read the life of any important person without discovering that he knew more and could do more than I could ever hope to know or do in half a dozen lifetimes.

Comedy, we may say, is society protecting itself – with a smile.

Public opinion polls are rather like children in a garden, digging things up all the time to see how they’re growing.

To show a child what once delighted you, to find the child’s delight added to your own – this is happiness.

Be yourself is about the worst advice you can give to some people.

In plain words: now that Britain has told the world that she has the H-Bomb she should announce as early as possible that she has done with it, that she proposes to reject in all circumstances nuclear warfare.

The more we elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.

There are plenty of clever young writers. But there is too much genius, not enough talent.