Gaffe-focused journalism: revenge of intelligent people who know true evils are out there but lack the access/time to get to them.

In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion.

The problem with clichés is not that they contain false ideas, but rather that they are superficial articulations of very good ones...If...we are obliged to create our own language, it is because there are dimensions to ourselves absent from clichés, which require us to flout etiquette in order to convey with greater accuracy the distinctive timbre of our thought.

As adults, we try to develop the character traits that would have rescued our parents.

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.'

The finest proof of our loyalty toward one another was our monstrous disloyalties towards everyone else.

It is in books, poems, paintings which often give us the confidence to take seriously feelings in ourselves that we might otherwise never have thought to acknowledge.