What would have become of me if no one had wanted to read my books? And don't forget all those who have written of me.

I had become shy of life's bustle in my solitary retreat and was apprehensive at the thought of facing the world.

I thought of my father and felt a deep sorrow that he should no longer be alive, and that I could not go to him and tell him that I had been awarded the Nobel Prize. I knew that no one would have been happier than he to hear this.

Anyone who has ever sat in a train as it rushes through a dark night will know that sometimes there are long minutes when the coaches slide smoothly along without so much as a shudder.

Who knows what would have become of me, if my parents had not had their influence on me.

Most books today seem to have been written overnight from books read that day