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.'

We each appear to hold within ourselves a range of divergent views as to our native qualities.. And amid such uncertainty, we typically turn to the wider world to settle the question of our significance.. we seem beholden to affections of others to endure ourselves.

For paranoia about 'what other people think' : remember that only some hate, a very few love - and almost all just don't care.

The more dignity is widely and freely available in a society, the less people want to be famous.

Travel agents would be wiser to ask us what we hope to change about our lives rather than simply where we wish to go.

Her lie was symptomatic of a certain pride she took in mocking the romantic, in being unsentimental, matter-of-fact, stoic; yet at heart she was the oppo site: idealistic, dreamy, giving, and deeply attached to everything she liked verbally to dismiss as "mushy.

The price we have paid for expecting to be so much more than our ancestors is a perpetual anxiety that we are far from being all we might be.