This is the forked tongue of grief again. It whispers in one ear: return to what you once loved best, and in the other ear it whispers, move on.

I think, in common with a lot of novelists, I wasn't the most athletic guy at school.

If your face is swollen from the severe beatings of life, smile and pretend to be a fat man.

WWII was, without exaggeration, the biggest event in all of human history, and it is still within living memory.

You travel here and you travel there, trying to get out from under the cloud, and nothing works, and then one day you realize you've been carrying the weather around with you.

Our own personal brand of courage - in relationships, in conflict, in our principles ­ - is as unique as our fingerprints.

A scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.