All the best essays are epistemological journeys from ignorance or curiosity to knowledge.

I don't like my books being defined by their "about"-ness. So now the subtitle has just become a kind of strap-line on the cover.

One's happiness is very largely a question of state of mind rather than the world you are looking at.

All the best essays are epistemological journeys from ignorance or curiosity to knowledge.

I always hope to come up with a style of writing that's appropriate to the material and I felt like this was. And then there's plenty of - I don't know if it's the right word but - lampooning, but it's always at my expense.

I think I can recognize when a piece is at a state of completion. I always say to my wife, "Oh yeah, it's roughly finished." I've got it there. And then there's that whole other phase of moving on to properly amp up the sentences and sometimes to move stuff around as well.

I would agree on the aging thing. Because, at a certain point, once you start noticing it, it is your subject. And I know young that people, when they get to 30, say, "Oh, I'm so old." But actually, around 50, you do become conscious of it.