Small things may be important to us; to be a sometime anything is sometimes something.

None of us knows how we will cope with snakes until the moment arises, and then most of us find out that we do not do it very well.

Old friends, like old shoes, are comfortable. But old shoes, unlike old friends, tend not to be supportive: it is easier to stumble and sprain an ankle while wearing a pair of old shoes than it is in new shoes, with their less yielding leather.

A very powerful theme in fiction is that of loss.

The people with the strong, brave exteriors are just as weak and vulnerable as the rest of us. And of course they never admit to their childish practices, their moments of weakness or absurdity, and then the rest of us think that's how it should be.

I have always taken the view that one should never hold against a man anything he says after twelve o'clock at night or after a glass or two of anything.

My wife Elizabeth and I started The Really Terrible Orchestra for people like us who are pretty hopeless musicians who would like to play in an orchestra. It has been a great success. We give performances; weve become the most famous bad orchestra in the world.