A pier is a disappointed bridge; yet stare at it for long enough and you can dream it to the other side of the Channel.

To look at ourselves from afar, to make the subjective suddenly objective: this gives us a psychic shock.

History is the lies of the victors.

In an oppressive society the truth-telling nature of literature is of a different order, and sometimes valued more highly than other elements in a work of art.

He thought of trying to explain something he had recently noticed about himself: that if anyone insulted him, or one of his friends, he didn't really mind--or not much, anyway. Whereas if anyone insulted a novel, a story, a poem that he loved, something visceral and volcanic occurred within him. He wasn't sure what this might mean--except perhaps that he had got life and art mixed up, back to front, upside down.

In life, every ending is just the start of another story.

Writers of either gender ought to be able to do the opposite sex-that's one basic test of competence, after all.