" People believe what they want to believe." — Nevil Shute

"If you're going to make your life in a new country you should go before you're twenty-five. After that you start to get associations, little grooves and anchors, that make it difficult to change."

"You can't go through life sitting on the fence. You've got to make decisions, and sometimes you're pretty sure to make them wrong."

Success did not thrill him in the least. He regarded a success merely as a convenient platform from which to plan a further advance.