When a man cannot chose, he ceases to be a man.

...We're a government that believes in everybody having the illusion of free will.

Rome's just a city like anywhere else. A vastly overrated city, I'd say. It trades on belief just as Stratford trades on Shakespeare.

A man can write one book that can be great, but this doesn't make him a great writer-just the writer of a great book. . . I think a writer has to extend very widely, as well as plunge very deep, to be a great novelist.

The downtrodden are the great creators of slang.

But we were all feeling that bit shagged and fagged and fashed, it having been an evening of some small energy expenditure.

Elgar is not manic enough to be Russian, not witty or pointilliste enough to be French, not harmonically simple enough to be Italian and not stodgy enough to be German. We arrive at his Englishry by pure elimination.