If we had to say what writing is, we would have to define it essentially as an act of courage.

Time at length becomes justice.

History ... isn't simply what has happened. It's a judgment on what has happened.

If ideas are what feed serious literature and arresting language, who today is writing a novel of ideas (which can often mean comedy)? I think of Joshua Cohen. Who else?

Of comic novels that have quaffed the elixir of 'classic': Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm.

Language makes culture, and we make a rotten culture when we abuse words.

I wanted to use what I was, to be what I was born to be - not to have a 'career', but to be that straightforward obvious unmistakable animal, a writer.