Dying is a matter of slapstick and pratfalls. The ageing process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn't ready to appear ridiculous.

It is desperately important to remember when enough is enough, when you've finished the scene.

I'd been told of all the things you're meant to feel when your father dies. Sudden freedom, growing up, the end of dependence, the step into the sunlight when no one is taller than you and you're in no one's shadow. I know what I felt. Lonely.

Hell must be a place where you are only allowed to read what you agree with.

No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean finger nails.

What obsesses a writer starting out on a lifetime's work is the panic-stricken search for a voice of his own.

Check-ups are, in my experience, a grave mistake; all they do is allow the quack of your choice to tell you that you have some sort of complaint that you were far happier not knowing about.