Nobody wants to fall into a safety net, because it means the structure in which they've been living is in a state of collapse and they have no choice but to tumble downwards. However, it beats the alternative.

Young writers should read books past bedtime and write things down in notebooks when they are supposed to be doing something else.

Those unable to catalog the past are doomed to repeat it.

Neither were you [born yesterday], unless of course I am wrong, in which case welcome to the world, little baby, and congratulations on learning to read so early in life.

Lately it has become more and more difficult to attend dinner parties without the evening ending in gunfire or tapioca.

It is much, much worse to receive bad news through the written word than by somebody simply telling you, and I’m sure you understand why. When somebody simply tells you bad news, you hear it once, and that’s the end of it. But when bad news is written down, whether in a letter or a newspaper or on your arm in felt tip pen, each time you read it, you feel as if you are receiving the bad news again and again.

You may be right,' she said, a phrase which here meant 'I’m wrong, but I don’t have the courage to say so.