Perhaps the world progresses not by maturing, but by being in a permanent state of adolescence, of thrilled discovery.

History isn't what happened, history is just what historians tell us.

I’ve always thought you are what you are and you shouldn’t pretend to be anyone else. But Oliver used to correct me and explain that you are whoever it is you’re pretending to be.

I'm a complete democrat in terms of who buys my books.

Poets seem to write more easily about love than prose writers. For a start, they own that flexible ‘I’…. Then again, poets seem able to turn bad love – selfish, shitty love – into good love poetry. Prose writers lack this power of admirable, dishonest transformation. We can only turn bad love into prose about bad love. So we are envious (and slightly distrustful) when poets talk to us of love.

Time...give us enough time and our best-supported decisions will seem wobbly, our certainties whimsical.

One of the troubles is this: the heart isn't heart-shaped.