To sit at one's table on a sunny morning, with four clear hours of uninterruptible security, plenty of nice white paper, and a Squeezer pen [laughter]-that is true happiness.

It was great fun writing a book.... It built an impalpable crystal sphere around one of interests and ideas. In a sense one felt like a goldfish in a bowl; but in this case the goldfish made his own bowl. This came along everywhere with me. It never got knocked about in travelling, and there was never a moment when agreeable occupation was lacking. Either the glass had to be polished, or the structure extended or contracted, or the walls required strengthening.

Clarity and cogency can be reconciled with a greater brevity...it is slothful not to compress your thoughts.

The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning.

I am never going to have anything more to do with politics or politicians. When this war is over, I shall confine myself entirely to writing and painting.

I feel devoutly thankful to have been born fond of writing.