The first book I fell in love with was 'Little Toot,' the story of an adorable tugboat operating out of New York Harbor.

Proust is a hero of mine. I read 'A la recherche' in one go, and I'm a very slow reader. It had an astonishing impact, reading it on my own and being my main company. I think Proust is the most intelligent person to ever have written a novel.

The first book I fell in love with was 'Little Toot,' the story of an adorable tugboat operating out of New York Harbor.

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.

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.

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

People never remeber happiness with the care that they lavish on preserving every detail of their suffering.