“Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it: innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.”

There was always another side to a joke, the side of the victim.

They are always saying God loves us. If thats love I’d rather have a bit of kindness.

Hate is an automatic response to fear, for fear humiliates.

He entered the territory of lies without a passport for return.

Pity is cruel. Pity destroys.

Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.

In a mad world it always seems simpler to obey.

It was as though our love were a small creature caught in a trap and bleeding to death: I had to shut my eyes and wring its neck.

God save us always,’ I said ‘from the innocent and the good.

The hands of the guilty don’t necessarily tremble; only in stories does a dropped glass betray agitation. Tension is more often shown in the studied action.

We can love with our minds, but can we love only with our minds? Love extends itself all the time, so that we can love even with our senseless nails: we love even with our clothes, so that a sleeve can feel a sleeve.

You needn’t be so scared. Love doesn’t end. Just because we don’t see each other.

It’s a good world if you don’t weaken.

As long as one suffers one lives.

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.

All good novelists have bad memories.