We may not agree with what religions are trying to teach us, but we can admire the institutional way in which they're doing it.

The longing for destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life.

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.

It's very hard to respect people on holiday - everybody looks so silly at the beach, it makes you hate humanity - but when you see people at their work they elicit respect, whether it's a mechanic, a stonemason or an accountant.

It looks like it’s wasting time, but literature is actually the ultimate time-saver - because it gives us access to a range of emotions and events that it would take you years, decades, millennia to try to experience directly. Literature is the greatest reality simulator - a machine that puts you through infinitely more situations than you can ever directly witness.

The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where "ordinary" life fails to answer a median need for dignity and comfort.

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