Once I read autobiography as what the writer thought about his or her life. Now I think, 'This is what they thought at that time'. An interim report - that is what an autobiography is.

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

What society doesn't realize is that in the past, ordinary people respected learning. They respected books, and they don't now, or not very much. That whole respect for serious literature and learning has disappeared.

I am increasingly afflicted by vertigo where words mean nothing

The critics slap labels on you and then expect you to talk inside their terms.

Small things amuse small minds.

How boring these emotions are that we're caught in and can't get free of, no matter how much we want to.