I think vestigially there's a synesthete in me but not like a real one who immediately knows what colour Wednesday is.

Narrative is one of the best intoxicants or tranquilisers.

I think the virtue I prize above all others is curiosity. If you look really hard at almost anybody, and try to see why they're doing what they're doing, taking a dig at them ceases to be what you want to do even if you hate them.

There are things that happen and leave no discernible trace, are not spoken or written of, though it would be very wrong to say that subsequent events go on indifferently, all the same, as though such things had never been.

It's a terrible poison, writing.

There is a peculiar aesthetic pleasure in constructing the form of a syllabus, or a book of essays, or a course of lectures. Visions and shadows of people and ideas can be arranged and rearranged like stained-glass pieces in a window, or chessmen on a board.

You can understand a lot about yourself by working out which fairytale you use to present your world to yourself in.