As with marathon runs and lengths of toilet paper, there had to be standards to measure up to.

As long as I kept my body moving I could forget about the emptiness inside.

In long-distance running the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be.

Nothing in the real world is as beautiful as the illusions of a person about to lose consciousness.

George Orwell is half journalist, half fiction writer. I'm 100 percent fiction writer... I don't want to write messages. I want to write good stories. I think of myself as a political person, but I don't state my political messages to anybody.

You have to make an effort to always look at the good side, always think about the good things. Then you've got nothing to be afraid of. If something bad comes up, you do more thinking at that point.

Irrepressible curiosity vied with an instinctive fear.