There's a cultural conviction that any 'artist' must have personal suffering to back up their work, otherwise there's something undeserved and therefore inauthentic about it, perhaps even some sort of cheating.

We were greeted by the minister whose inclusive, non-judgemental smile was no more than a whisker away from a smirk. Have I made it clear? I don't like belief systems and even less like those that peddle self-righteousness. I have no doubt the minister was a sincere man, but I am not as impressed by the idea of sincerity as the sincere seem to be.

There's a cultural conviction that any 'artist' must have personal suffering to back up their work, otherwise there's something undeserved and therefore inauthentic about it, perhaps even some sort of cheating.

For the most part, quantum theory has been of little practical value in my life.

Everything passes, but nothing entirely goes away.

But nothing will persuade me that the mere fact of being in a place is enough in itself to justify the effort of getting out of bed to become a tourist, or even a traveller. I don't have the slightest wish to be intrepid. I don't want to prove myself to myself or anyone else. I don't care if no one thinks me brave or hardy. I have no concern at all that I did not have whatever it is I should have had to take a dive out of a plane or off a building. None of that matters to me in the least.

Good writing and dark wit always excite me and they come together thrillingly in this book. It has a quiet grip on the strangeness of the interior and exterior worlds of love and politics. I delighted in the writing and the scope.