For me, the life of the angler is an almost flawless example of how not to have a good time.

I have decided to take whatever my disease can throw at me.

In an average day, you may well be confronted with some species of bullying or bigotry, or some ill-phrased appeal to the general will, or some petty abuse of authority. If you have a political loyalty, you may be offered a shady reason for agreeing to a lie or a half-truth that serves some short-term purpose. Everybody devises tactics for getting through such moments; try behaving "as if" they need not be tolerated and are not inevitable.

It's the professional deformation of many writers, and has ruined not a few. (I remember Kingsley Amis, himself no slouch, saying that he could tell on what page of the novel Paul Scott had reached for the bottle and thrown caution to the winds.)

A melancholy lesson of advancing years is the realisation that you can't make old friends.

To be against rationalization is not the same as to be opposed to reasoning.

Of course, I do everything for money.