According to Montaigne, it was the oppressive notion that we had complete mental control over our bodies, and the horror of departing from this portrait of normality, that had left the man unable to perform sexually.

Although I don't believe in God, Bach's music shows me what a love of God must feel like.

Objectively good spaces to work rarely end up being so; in their faultlessness, quiet and well-equipped studios have a habit of rendering the fear of failure overwhelming. Original thoughts are like shy animals. We sometimes have to look the other way - towards a busy street or terminal - before they run out of their burrows.

It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things.

We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.

You have to be quite heavily invested in someone to do them the honour of telling them you're annoyed with them.

We tend to believe in the modern secular world that if you tell someone something once, they'll remember it. ... Religions go, "Nonsense. You need to keep repeating the lesson 10 times a day. So get on your knees and repeat it." That's what all religions tell us: "Get on your knees and repeat it 10 or 20 or 15 times a day." Otherwise our minds are like sieves.