So boring you fall asleep halfway through her name.

Clichés can be quite fun. That's how they got to be clichés.

Books are not about passing time. They're about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass, one just wishes one had more of it. If one wanted to pass the time one could go to New Zealand.

Of course my standards are out of date! That's why they're called standards.

We were put to Dickens as children but it never quite took. That unremitting humanity soon had me cheesed off.

Deluded liberal that I am, I persist in thinking that those with a streak of sexual unorthodoxy ought to be more tolerant of their fellows than those who lead an entirely godly, righteous and sober life. Illogically, I tend to assume that if you ( Philip Larkin) dream of caning schoolgirls bottoms, it disqualifies you from dismissing half the nation as work-shy.

Sometimes there is no next time, no time-outs, no second chances. Sometimes it’s now or never.