Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books that were written because authors couldn't find anyone to talk to.

The problem is if you really believe in a society where those who merit to get to the top, get to the top, you’ll also, by implication … believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there.

Every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.

The challenge for a human now is to be more interesting to another than his or her smartphone.

Unnatural to expect that learning to be happy should be any easier than, say, learning to play the violin or require any less practice.

Love is an incurable disease. In love, there is permanent suffering. Those who love and those who are happy are not the same.

There are things that are not spoken about in polite society. Very quickly in most conversations you'll reach a moment where someone goes, 'Oh, that's a bit heavy,' or 'Eew, disgusting.' And literature is a place where that stuff goes; where people whisper to each other across books, the writer to the reader. I think that stops you feeling lonely – in the deeper sense, lonely.