Does political correctness have a good side? Yes, it does, for it makes us re-examine attitudes, and that is always useful. The trouble is that, with all popular movements, the lunatic fringe so quickly ceases to be a fringe; the tail begins to wag the dog. For every woman or man who is quietly and sensibly using the idea to examine our assumptions, there are twenty rabble-rousers whose real motive is desire for power over others. The fact that they see themselves as antiracists or feminists or whatever does not make them any less rabble-rousers.

I do not think that marriage is one of my talents. I've been much happier unmarried than married.

The older I get the more secrets I have, never to be revealed and this, I know, is a common condition of people my age. and why all this emphasis on kissing and telling? Kisses are the least of it.

They can't give a Nobel to someone who's dead so I think they were probably thinking they had better give it to me now.

I am increasingly afflicted by vertigo where words mean nothing

You can't be a Red if you're married to a civil servant.

What the feminists want of me is something they haven't examined because it comes from religion. They want me to bear witness.