Justice was revenge wrapping itself in a cloak of high principle.

...there is little that comes so close to death as fulfilled love.

Most people can't imagine a life that is any different from the one they are actually living. They can dream about it, they can even go into the streets and demonstrate for it, but they still can't imagine what it would be like.

If you tell anything to a woman ... it's like putting it in the papers.

I realised the amazing power of literature and of the human imagination generally: to make the dead live and to stop the living from dying.

..the writer's obsession - the desire to know and communicate, or, rather, to know everything so as to communicate with the greatest degree of precision.

To destroy is easier than to create, and that is why so many people are ready to demonstrate against what they reject. But what would they say if one asked them what they wanted instead?