Once I went professionally to an archaeological expedition-and I learnt something there. In the course of an excavation, when something comes up out of the ground, everything is cleared away very carefully all around it. You take away the loose earth, and you scrape here and there with a knife until finally your object is there, all alone, ready to be drawn and photographed with no extraneous matter confusing it. That is what I have been seeking to do-clear away the extraneous matter so that we can see the truth-the naked shining truth.
I can't imagine why everybody is always so keen for authors to talk about writing. I should have thought it was an author's business to write, not talk.
It is curious - but you cannot make a revolution without honest men. ... Every revolution has had its honest men. They are soon disposed of afterwards.
Any medical man who predicts exactly when a patient will die, or exactly how long he will live, is bound to make a fool of himself. The human factor is always incalculable. The weak have often unexpected powers of resistance, the strong sometimes succumb.
All I needed was a steady table and a typewriter...a marble-topped bedroom washstand table made a good place; the dining-room table between meals was also suitable.
Nobody believes in magicians any more, nobody believes that anyone can come along and wave a wand and turn you into a frog. But if you read in the paper that by injecting certain glands scientists can alter your vital tissues and you'll develop froglike characteristics, well, everybody would believe that.
It often seems to me that's all detective work is, wiping out your false starts and beginning again." Yes, it is very true, that. And it is just what some people will not do. They conceive a certain theory, and everything has to fit into that theory. If one little fact will not fit it, they throw it aside. But it is always the facts that will not fit in that are significant.
It is my experience that no one, in the course of conversation, can fail to give themselves away sooner or later. Everyone has an irresistible urge to talk about themselves.