Work did bestow dignity, status, meaning. Wasn't that why people dreaded unemployment, why some men found retirement so traumatic?
Open your mind to new experiences, particularly to the study of other people. Nothing that happens to a writer – however happy, however tragic – is ever wasted.
I knew the facts of death before I knew the facts of life. There never was a time when I didn't see the skull beneath the skin.
Not so much two ships passing in the night as two ships sailing together for a time but always bound for different ports.
A politician is required to listen to humbug, talk humbug, condone humbug. The most we can hope for is that we don't actually believe it.
The modern holy trinity is money, sex and celebrity.
Authors always take rejection badly. They equate it with infanticide.
Charm is often despised but I can never see why. No one has it who isn't capable of genuinely liking others, at least at the actual moment of meeting and speaking. Charm is always genuine; it may be superficial but it isn't false.
In youth we take egregious risks because death has no reality for us. Youth goes caparisoned in immortality. It is only in middle age that we are shadowed by the awareness of the transitoriness of life.
The greatest mystery of all is the human heart.
All fiction is largely autobiographical and much autobiography is, of course, fiction.
It's easy to get a reputation for wisdom. It's only necessary to live long, speak little and do less.
Any visitor to an historic country town or city quickly becomes aware in his or her peregrinations that the most attractive houses in the centre are invariably the offices of lawyers.
We English are good at forgiving our enemies; it releases us from the obligation of liking our friends.
Crime fiction confirms our belief, despite some evidence to the contrary, that we live in a rational, comprehensible, and moral universe.
Perfect love may cast our fear, but fear is remarkably potent in casting out love.
Increase your word power. Words are the raw material of our craft.
If you are proposing to commit a sin it is as well to commit it with intelligence. Otherwise you are insulting God as well as defying Him, don't you think?
Publishers don't nurse you; they buy and sell you.
the most successful marriages were always based on both partners feeling that they had done rather well for themselves.
I don't see why escapist literature shouldn't also be a work of art.
All these problems [deciding cases] are easier for people who believe in God. Those of us who don't or can't have to do the best we can. That's what the law is, the best we can do. Human justice is imperfect, but it's the only justice we have.
I thought of inviting you to my other club but you know how it is. Lunching there is a useful way of reminding people that you're still alive, but the members will come up and congratulate you on the fact.
Human kindness is like a defective tap, the first gush may be impressive but the stream soon dries up.
What was so terrible about grief was not grief itself, but that one got over it.
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