Writing isn’t a career choice. It’s self-medication that over time precipitates the madness it was meant to ward off.

Blind impatience is equally evident in the fruit section. Our ancestors might have delighted in the occasional handful of berries found on the underside of a bush in late summer, viewing it as a sign of the unexpected munificence of a divine creator, but we became modern when we gave up on awaiting sporadic gifts from above and sought to render any pleasing sensation immediately and repeatedly available.

Unnatural to expect that learning to be happy should be any easier than, say, learning to play the violin or require any less practice.

The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.

One of love's greatest drawbacks is that, for a while at least, it is in danger of making us happy.

We may not agree with what religions are trying to teach us, but we can admire the institutional way in which they're doing it.

There are people who say, 'Oh this guy is quite thick.' I think the reason is that, increasingly, I don't mind being simple in terms of literary expression. Others say, 'No, no, no. He went to Cambridge. He got a good degree. He must be Einstein.'