Everything was usual. That was depression: being stuck, clinging to an out-of-date version of oneself.

Irony is the hardest addiction of all. Forget heroin. Just try giving up irony, the deep-down need to mean two things at once, to be in two places at once, not to be there for the catastrophe of a fixed meaning.

The thing about the 'Melrose' novels is that I have to feel they're impossible when I set out.

Looking after children can be a subtle way of giving up... They become the whole ones, the well ones, the postponement of happiness, the ones who won't drink too much, give up, get divorced, become mentally ill. The part of oneself that's fighting against decay and depression is transferred to guarding them from decay and depression. In the meantime one decays and gets depressed.

You can only give things up once they start to let you down.

No pain is too small if it hurts, but any pain is too big if it's cherished.

It's no use imagining that bringing great writers together inevitably precipitates great conversation.