It had been a wonderful evening and what I needed now, to give it the perfect ending, was a little of the Ludwig Van.

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

If you want to be considered a poet, you will have to show mastery of the petrarchan sonnet form or the sestina. Your musical efforts must begin with well-formed fugues. There is no substitute for craft... Art begins with craft, and there is no art until craft has been mastered.

I see what is right and approve, but I do what is wrong.

A novelist should not be too intelligent either, although... he may be permitted to be an intellectual.

I have heard earnest American sociologists say that American children have a right to the divorce experience as an enriching element of an advanced civilisation.

I was always on my oddy knocky.