Watching Jamila sometimes made me think the world was divided into three sorts of people: those who knew what they wanted to do; those (the unhappiest) who never knew what their purpose in life was; and those who found out later on. I was in the last category, I reckoned, which didn't stop me wishing I'd been born into the first.

Dear God, teach me to be careless.

I don't want to be loved. I want to be desired. Love is safety, but desire is foul.

I've never had any desire to be good. I don't like goodness particularly.

It seemed to me that the real philosophical breakthroughs of the 20th century were in terms of the understanding of language. What is language? Where does it come from, how does it work, what does it do?

I guess writing is a kind of therapy in the sense that there are things you need to say and you say them, and better out than in.

Without love, most of life remains concealed. Nothing is as fascinating as love, unfortunately.