And when I was young, my family was perfectly nice. I write a lot about it, as you noticed. But it was rather limited. I think, I don't think anyone in my family would really feel I'd done them an injustice by saying that. We didn't see many people. There were many books. It was as if I wanted to get away from home.

Knowing that we are primates, I think, is a fascinating discovery, and a very interesting and rather cheering one.

When I meet people who say - which they do all of the time - 'I must just tell you, my great aunt had cancer of the elbow and the doctors gave her 10 seconds to live, but last I heard she was climbing Mount Everest,' and so forth, I switch off quite early.

There is no such thing as closure, and it wouldn't be worth having if it were available, because all it would mean is that something that was quite an important part of you had gone numb.

All this could be part of a plan. There is no way an atheist can prove it’s not. But it’s some plan, isn't it? With mass destruction, pitiless extermination, annihilation going on all the time. And all of this set in motion on a scale that’s absolutely beyond our imagination, in order that the pope can tell people not to jerk off.

The diet book is one of those fool-and-money separation devices that seems, like roulette or slot machines, never to lose its power.

Of course, I do everything for money.