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.

The media insists on taking what someone didn't mean to say as being far closer to the truth than what they did.

Endeavoring to purchase something we think beautiful may in fact be the most unimaginative way of dealing with the longing it excites in us, just as trying to sleep with someone may be the bluntest response to a feeling of love.

People who go on to be writers are those who can forgive themselves the horror of the first draft.

Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.

The mind does most of its best thinking when we aren't there. The answers are there in the morning.

Rather than getting more spoilt with age, as difficulties pile up, epiphanies of gratitude abound.