I don't have any terrific self-esteem issues but I do sometimes realise I've been too lucky and that I'm over-praised. It makes me nervous. I have this sense of being overrated.

I'd like to prove to other people that it's not the end of everything to be diagnosed with cancer.

I've been writing a lot about a new form of Russian imperialism. Actually, Russian Orthodox imperialism. It's very little remarked that the cement, the political, ideological cement of the Russian regime now, communism having collapsed and imploded, is increasingly a confessional one.

I could not do what I do, and teach a class, and never miss a deadline, never be late for anything if I was a lush, OK? I would really love to read a piece that said, 'He is not a lush.' That would be fabulous, it would be a first, I could show it to people and say, 'Look!'

The atheist proposition is the following - most of the time - it may not be said that there is no god; it may be said that there is no reason to think that there is one.

To be in opposition is not to be a nihilist. And there is no decent or charted way of making a living at it. It is something you are, and not something you do.

It's not at all good when your cancer is 'palpable' from the outside. Especially when, as at this stage, they didn't even know where the primary source was. Carcinoma works cunningly from the inside out. Detection and treatment often work more slowly and gropingly, from the outside in.