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" It is terrible to destroy a person's picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction. "

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" Time and distance from the first and second world wars doesn't seem to lessen their horrors. "

" You should write, first of all, to please yourself. You shouldn't care a damn about anybody else at all. But writing can't be a way of life; the important part of writing is living. You have to live in such a way that your writing emerges from it. "

" You know, when I was a girl, the idea that the British Empire could ever end was absolutely inconceivable. And it just disappeared, like all the other empires. "

" The Nobel Prize is run by a self-perpetuated committee. They vote for themselves and get the world's publishing industry to jump to their tune. "

" You know, looking at it objectively, I've written one or two good books. "

" The human race has been telling stories since it began. "

" I haven't got the energy to write now. "

" All I do is give interviews and spend time being photographed. "

" When you're young you think that you're going to sail into a lovely lake of quietude and peace. This is profoundly untrue. "

" The critics slap labels on you and then expect you to talk inside their terms. "

" What society doesn't realize is that in the past, ordinary people respected learning. They respected books, and they don't now, or not very much. That whole respect for serious literature and learning has disappeared. "

" Borrowing is not much better than begging; just as lending with interest is not much better than stealing. "

" What's terrible is to pretend that second-rate is first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better. "

" What the feminists want of me is something they haven't examined because it comes from religion. They want me to bear witness. "

" For the last third of life there remains only work. It alone is always stimulating, rejuvenating, exciting and satisfying. "

" There's always this sense of incredulity that writers feel, because they're usually living flat and ordinary lives, because they have to. "

" I think a lot of romanticizing has gone on with the women's movement. "

" Sentimentality is intolerable because it is false feeling. "

" I don't think in terms of optimism and pessimism when writing a story. I am telling a story. "

" My father was in the First World War. "

" In the writing process, the more a story cooks, the better. "

" I'm sure that everybody feels a kind of permanent anguish about what's going on in the world. "

" It is very enjoyable, writing a story. You get this idea. It takes hold of you. And then you spend day and night thinking about how to do it. And then you do it. And much later, you think, 'Oh, yes. That's an interesting question.' "

" Our society is dependent on some precarious mechanisms, and they are very dicey. They can easily collapse. "

" What is a hero without love for mankind. "

" I do not think that marriage is one of my talents. I've been much happier unmarried than married. "

" We use our parents like recurring dreams, to be entered into when needed. "

" I'm just a story teller. "

" Trust no friend without faults, and love a woman, but no angel. "

" The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven't changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don't change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion. "