In Italy, for the same price as a typical British hamburger meal including sweet, a builder's labourer could eat like a king - rather better in fact, because pasta dishes gain from being kept simple.

All honest labor becomes easy; it only becomes hard when done with unwillingness.

You can't be young always. The day will come when everything will fall apart.

Writers quite often starve. And I'm mainly just writing critical prose and poetry, that's a formula for starvation.

Even in moments of tranquility, Murray Walker sounds like a man whose trousers are on fire.

I'm certainly not a linguist. I learned what languages I could learn in order to read books and I can't really speak them. I couldn't have stayed out of jail in most of them.

My niece is - her name is Sasha, is currently learning Russian at Melbourne University and I look forward to the day when I can talk to her about Pushkin.