“Melchett said gloomily, 'Well, we know where we are -- or rather, where we aren't!''Where we aren't expresses it rather better, sir.”

“Our weapon is our knowledge. But remember, it may be a knowledge we may not know that we possess.”

“Write even when you don't want to, don't much like what you are writing, and aren't writing particularly well.”

“Nobody shall drive us away,” I said. “We're going to be happy here.” We said it like a challenge to fate.”

“We are ready to despair too soon, we are ready to say, ‘What’s the good of doing anything?’ Hope is the virtue we should cultivate most in this present day and age.”

“There was a moment when I changed from an amateur to a professional. I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you don't want to, don't much like what you're writing, and aren't writing particularly well.”

“I believe the present matters --- not the past! The past must go. If we seek to keep the past alive, we end, I think, by distorting it. We see it in exaggerated terms --- a false perspective.”