Now the basic impulse behind existentialism is optimistic, very much like the impulse behind all science. Existentialism is romanticism, and romanticism is the feeling that man is not the mere he has always taken himself for. Romanticism began as a tremendous surge of optimism about the stature of man. Its aim - like that of science - was to raise man above the muddled feelings and impulses of his everyday humanity, and to make him a god-like observer of human existence.

Sexual activity is driven by the same aims and motives as reading poetry or listening to music: to escape the limitations imposed by the need for particularity in the consciousness.

The "passion for incredulity" can produce as much self-deception as the uncritical will to believe.

Turning on the light is easy if you know where the switch is.

If you asked me what is the basis of all my work, it's the feeling there's something basically wrong with human beings.

Our language has become a tired and inefficient thing in the hands of journalists and writers who have nothing to say.

As a young man I was scornful about the supernatural but as I have got older, the sharp line that divided the credible from the incredible has tended to blur; I am aware that the whole world is slightly incredible