It Is Strange, Is It Not, How

It's Only Recently That We've Discovered That The Artist's Inner Self Is Somehow More Important Than The Public World. I'm Happier To Create Exterior Pieces For The World Rather Than To Express Something I Deeply Feel Or Wish To Say.

I Have Liv'd Long Enough For Others, Like The Dog In The Wheel, And It Is Now The Season To Begin For Myself: I Cannot Change That Thing Call'd Time, But I Can Alter Its Posture And, As Boys Do Turn A Looking-glass Against The Sunne, So I Will Dazzle You All.

Why Should A Novelist Not Also Be A Historian? To Force Unnatural Divisions Within The English Language Is To Work Against Its Capacious And Accommodating Nature. To Expect A Writer To Produce Only Novels, Or Only Histories, Is Equivalent To Demanding From A Composer That He Or She Write Only String Quartets Or Piano Sonatas.

One Can Forgive Shakespeare Anything, Except One's Own Bad Lines.

And The Smell Of The Library Was Always The Same - The Musty Odour Of Old Clothes Mixed With The Keener Scent Of Unwashed Bodies, Creating What The Chief Librarian Had Once Described As 'the Steam Of The Social Soup.'