Writing fiction is for me a fraught business an occasion of daily dread for at least the first half of the novel and sometimes all the way through. The work process is totally different from writing nonfiction. You have to sit down every day and make it up.

The war is dreadful. It is the business of the artist to follow it home to the heart of the individual fighters - not to talk in armies and nations and numbers - but to track it home.

It really was hand-to-mouth and you can say 'Poor little me how dreadful what a deprived childhood' but I didn't feel that way at all. It's all about the attitude at home.

Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity the dread of doing what has been done before.

Death be not proud though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful for thou art not so. For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow. Die not poor death nor yet canst thou kill me.

Every child senses with all the horse sense that's in him that any parent is angry inside when children misbehave and they dread more the anger that is rarely or never expressed openly wondering how awful it might be.

Ah mon cher for anyone who is alone without God and without a master the weight of days is dreadful.

I think it's your mental attitude. So many of us start dreading age in high school and that's a waste of a lovely life. 'Oh... I'm 30 oh I'm 40 oh 50.' Make the most of it.