“I have been in many countries, and I have found there people examining their own…” — William Golding

The writer probably knows what he meant when he wrote a book, but he should immediately forget what he meant when he's written it.

I am optimistic when I consider the spiritual dimension which the scientist's discipline forces him to ignore.

A novel ensures that we can look before and after, take action at whatever pace we choose, read again and again, skip and go back. The story in a book is humble and serviceable, available, friendly, is not switched on and off but taken up and put down, lasts a lifetime.

I must have been an unsatisfactory child for grownups to deal with. I remember how incomprehensible they appeared to me at first, but not, of course, how I appeared to them.