When two people were in love you had to leave them to it. Especially when you weren't in love and wished that you were. That could embarrass. That could hurt.

Thoughts jostled for space in my crowded brain as I struggled to give them some order which might serve to motivate my listless life

Ah wonder if anybody this side of the Atlantic has ever bought a baseball bat with playing baseball in mind.

You know, people tend to get stereotyped for about forty percent of their behavior, so if you're completely crazy forty percent of the time you'll get stereotyped as crazy, even if you're totally boring thirty percent of the time and just studious the other thirty percent of the time.

I tend to read more nonfiction, really, because when I'm writing I don't like to read other fiction.

There's all this stuff that is happening in Edinburgh now, it's a sad attempt to create an Edinburgh society, similar to a London society, a highbrow literature celebrity society.

Most people in the West are not politicized. They're the most simplistic consumers - they're animals, basically.