All over the world, as governments retreat from their traditional duty to foster the common good and reconceive of themselves as mere managers of national economies, universities have been coming under pressure to turn themselves into training schools equipping young people with the skills required by a modern economy.

Truth is not spoken in anger. Truth is spoken, if it ever comes to be spoken, in love. The gaze of love is not deluded. It sees what is best in the beloved even when what is best in the beloved finds it hard to emerge into the light.

The spark of true poetry flashes when ideas are juxtaposed that no one has yet thought of bringing together.

I tend to resist invitations to interpret my own fiction.

The most important of all rights is the right to life, and I cannot foresee a day when domesticated animals will be granted that right in law.

And anyway, I suspect he secretly liked it when a woman was cold and distant

Once I lived in time as a fish in water, breathing it, drinking it, sustained by it. Now I kill time and time kills me.