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.

Parents – especially step-parents – are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don't fufill the promise of their early years.

He fell in love with himself at first sight and it is a passion to which he has always remained faithful.