When you really want to say no, say no. You can't do everything - or at least not well.

In the family sandwich, the older people and the younger ones can recognize one another as the bread. Those in the middle are, for a time, the meat.

People who wish to salute the free and independent side of their evolutionary character acquire cats. People who wish to pay homage to their servile and salivating roots own dogs.

Your kids are launched. You love your work but you understand how to place it in the panorama of the rest of your life. There's this line in the book, and when I wrote it I thought yes, that's it - if you think of life as a job, maybe by the time you get to, say, in my case, 60, you've finally gotten good at it.

London has the trick of making its past, its long indelible past, always a part of its present. And for that reason it will always have meaning for the future, because of all it can teach about disaster, survival, and redemption. It is all there in the streets. It is all there in the books.

I've always had a certain facility with words.

You teach your 16-year-old with your heart in your mouth to be a good driver and none of that makes any difference when some drunk comes around a corner and runs a stop sign.