I never wavered in my certainty that God did not exist. I was simply liberated by the thought that there might be a way to engage with religion without having to subscribe to its supernatural content - a way, to put it in more abstract terms, to think about Fathers without upsetting my respectful memory of my own father. I recognized that my continuing resistance to theories of an afterlife or of heavenly residents was no justification for giving up on the music, buildings, prayers, rituals, feasts, shrines, pilgrimages, communal meals and illustrated manuscripts of the faiths.

Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet.

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

Objectively good spaces to work rarely end up being so; in their faultlessness, quiet and well-equipped studios have a habit of rendering the fear of failure overwhelming. Original thoughts are like shy animals. We sometimes have to look the other way - towards a busy street or terminal - before they run out of their burrows.

Work is most fulfilling when you're at the comfortable, exciting edge of not quite knowing what you are doing.

Not being understood may be taken as a sign that there is much in one to understand.

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