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?"

All tours are filled with humiliation. My publisher once hired a private jet to fly me to a venue where 1,000 people were waiting. It almost bankrupted him.

Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we are.

Anxiety is the handmaiden of contemporary ambition.

Being funny should be an incidental byproduct of trying to get to something truthful, not a destination in itself.

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.

We read the weird tales in newspapers to crowd out the even weirder stuff inside us.