You get to be wiser by storying the world and seeing it through other forms of consciousness than your own.

He thought: How difficult it is to explain yourself to yourself. Sometimes there only is, and no knowing.

I don't actually think “true love” is such a good term because love can only be true. If it isn't true it can't be love.

Doing anything when you're bored is very very boring. Anyway, doing nothing is the point of being bored. The pleasure of being bored ismooning about and doing nothing.

We resent being faced with facts we'd prefer to ignore as much as being wrongly accused of doing something we haven't.

I huff and puff and struggle with every sentence, paragraph and page - sometimes every word as well.

She was--I keep using the past tense; I ought to say she is--one of those people who, at first sight, look plain, are quiet, unassertive, unmemorable even. But who, when they start to talk and you get to know them, become more and more attractive and impressive, and you see that in fact they are beautiful. Not conventionally beautiful, not celebrity beautiful, but beautiful all through.