Quotes

One always tends to overpraise a long book because one has got through it.

If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friends, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country. Such a choice may scandalize the modern reader, and he may stretch out his hand to the telephone at once and ring up the police. It would not have shocked [Dante Alighieri], though. Dante places Brutus and Cassius in the lowest circles of Hell because they had chosen their friend [Gaio Giulio Cesare] rather than their country Rome.

Although my mother has been intermittently tiresome for the last 30 years, cramped and warped my genius, hindered my career, blocked and buggered up my house, and boycotted my beloved, I have to admit she has provided a sort of rich subsoil where I have been able to rest and grow.

Oh, yes, indeed, the novel tells a story.