I was in New York. Hitchcock was in California. He rang me to make a report on his progress and said, I'm having trouble. I've just sacked my second screenwriter

My imagination functions much better when I don't have to speak to people.

Everything human is alien to me.

Life is a long failure of understanding ... a long, mistaken shutting of the heart.

Each book is, in a sense, an argument with myself, and I would write it, whether it is ever published or not.

One situation – maybe one alone – could drive me to murder: family life, togetherness.

And no book, and possibly no painting, when it is finished, is ever exactly like the first dream of it.

I have Graham Greene's telephone number, but I wouldn't dream of using it. I don't seek out writers because we all want to be alone.

How easy it was to lie when one had to lie!

For neither life nor nature cares if justice is ever done or not.

It always gets late with you. - Is that a compliment?

If we climb this high I swear we'll never die.

New York - that unnatural city where every one is an exile, none more so than the American

Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on.

Then, of course, I played alto and tenor, wherever there were jobs.

Slumps are like a soft bed. They're easy to get into and hard to get out of.

There is no beast more cruel than man.

Sandra Kasturi's magical poems transform the ordinary into the surreal and exotic.

I tend to wear monochromatic outfits - all one colour from head to toe.

Finally the world would see my full range of comedy characters - from grouchy librarian to Russian librarian.