My hunch, for what it's worth, is that most of us probably find it much, much harder than we realize to really imagine what catastrophe is like. I have a hunch that we all labor under this rather convenient illusion that if we read about the Syrian refugee crisis, we can imagine what it feels like to set off from your home and your life with all your possessions in two bin liners. We all think that we can imagine that and my guess is that none of us have got a clue.

Trying to defend religion by invoking science is like claiming that three plus four equals ice cream.

I've discovered that, in order for life to go on, you have to believe in necessary fantasies such as what you think is going to happen next week will actually happen, the people who are alive right now will be alive next week.

For most of my life I have known how to control my feelings. If you can control your feelings, you can pretty much control your whole world. It's amazingly effective.

I suppose if I didn't write for a living and it couldn't be published, I would have wanted to write anyway. I think there's something about the act of writing that organizes thoughts and memories.

One of the rather unedifying truths about grief is it does block out more or less everything. It has a solipsistic quality to it.

I flattered myself that I was rather empathetic, that I had rather good imaginative empathy. I've realized now that that was a complete self-delusion and that I didn't really have any comprehension of what it was like to see your entire life go catastrophically wrong in a matter of moments.