Children, I suppose, are always unfinished business: they begin as part of your own body, and continue as separate as another continent.

When we say we can pull resources away from libraries, from culture, from those parts of the education system that are not about utility, what we are really saying is that the life of the mind is unnecessary.

One room is always enough for one person. Two rooms is not enough for two people. That is one of the conundrums in life.

Anything outside marriage seems like freedom and excitement.

Every believer is an anarchist at heart. True believers would rather see governments topple and history rewritten than scuff the cover of their faith.

Lovers are not at their best when it matters. Mouths dry up, palms sweat, conversation flags and all the time the heart is threatening to fly from the body once and for all. Lovers have been known to have heart attacks. Lovers drink too much from nervousness and cannot perform. They eat too little and faint during their fervently wished consummation. They do not stroke the favoured cat and their face-paint comes loose. This is not all. Whatever you have set store by, your dress, your dinner, your poetry, will go wrong.

She had made him possible. In that sense she was his god. Like God, she was neglected.