Self-love seems so often unrequited. - Anthony Powell

People think because a novel's invented, it isn't true. Exactly the reverse is the case. Because a novel's invented, it is true. Biography and memoirs can never be wholly true, since they can't include every conceivable circumstance of what happened. The novel can do that. The novelist himself lays it down. His decision is binding.

[T]here is no greater sign of innate misery than a love of teasing.

The whole idea of interviews is in itself absurd – one cannot answer deep questions about what one's life was like – one writes novels about it.