Happiness is impossible for longer than 15 minutes. We are the descendants of creatures who, above all else, worried.

After 40 (old age for most of man's history), one should strive to be more or less packed and ready to go were the end call to come.

In the works of Lucretius, we find two reasons why we shouldn't worry about death. If you have had a successful life, Lucretius tell us, there's no reason to mind its end. And, if you haven't had a good time, "Why do you seek to add more years, which would also pass but ill?"

Though it may feel otherwise, enjoying life is no more dangerous than apprehending it with continuous anxiety and gloom.

Our homes do not have to offer us permanent occupancy or store our clothes to merit the name. To speak of home in relation to a building is simply to recognise its harmony with our own prized internal song. Home can be an airport or a library, a garden or a motorway diner.

In Britain, because I live here, I can also run into problems of envy and competition. But all this is just in a day's work for a writer. You can't put stuff out there without someone calling you a complete fool. Oh, well.

One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.