“The one thing which seems to me quite impossible is to take into consideration the kind of book one is expected to write; surely one can only write the book that is there to be written.

(, 8 September 1935)”

“There is only one way to defeat the enemy, and that is to write as well as one can. The best argument is an undeniably good book.”

“Great books write themselves, only bad books have to be written.”

“I don't write a book so that it will be the final word; I write a book so that other books are possible, not necessarily written by me.”

“Your whole life you are really writing one book, which is an attempt to grasp the consciousness of your time and place– a single book written from different stages of your ability.”

“The only book that is worth writing is the one we don’t have the courage or strength to write. The book that hurts us (we who are writing), that makes us tremble, redden, bleed”

“If it is permissible to write plays that are not intended to be seen, I should like to see who can prevent me from writing a book no one can read.”

“If you want to read a perfect book there is only one way: write it.”

“Authors write books for one, and only one, reason: because we like to torture people.”

“I learned to write by reading the kind of books I wished I'd written.”