Despite its maddeningly vague, inarticulate form, anxiety is almost always trying to tell you something useful and apposite.

Being incomprehensible offers unparalleled protection against having nothing to say...but writing with simplicity requires courage, for there is a danger that one will be overlooked, dismissed as simpleminded by those with a tenacious belief that the impassable prose is a hallmark of intelligence.

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

Our homes do not have to offer us permanent occupancy or store our clothes to merit the name. To speak of home in relation to a building is simply to recognise its harmony with our own prized internal song. Home can be an airport or a library, a garden or a motorway diner.

There's a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough.

One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.

One rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone as what is objectively healthy.