This was long before the term 'single-parent family' came into use; back then it was a 'broken home'.

He didn’t really like travel, of course. He liked the idea of travel, and the memory of travel, but not travel itself.

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.

Do not imagine that Art is something which is designed to give gentle uplift and self-confidence . Art is not a brassiere. At least, not in the English sense. But do not forget that brassiere is the French word for life-jacket.

The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously.

Irony - The modern mode: either the devil’s mark or the snorkel of sanity.

Later on in life, you expect a bit of rest, don't you? You think you deserve it. I did, anyway. But then you begin to understand that the reward of merit is not life's business.