Growing up in the English countryside seemed an interminable process. Freezing winter gave way to frosty spring, which in turn merged into chilly summer-but nothing ever, ever happened.

Knowing few children of my age with whom to compare notes, I envied the children of literature to whom interesting things were always happening.

the prison system, inherently unjust and inhumane, is the ultimate expression of injustice and inhumanity in the society at large.

Now there is a society where the funeral industry got completely out of control.

Society created the prison in its own image; will history, with its penchant for paradox, reverse those roles?

You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty.

the whole point of muck-raking, apart from all the jokes, is to try to do something about what you've been writing about. You may not be able to change the world but at least you can embarrass the guilty.