Whenever I am sent a new book on the lively arts, the first thing I do is look for myself in the index.

Women, more often than not, do things which aren't remotely relaxing but are all about preening, which is just another sort of work.

It's very hard to imagine the phrase "consumer society" used so cheerfully, and interpreted so enthusiastically, in England.

As a precocious teen I dreamed of being Graham Greene. Well, as it turned out, I never wrote a great novel, sadly, and I never converted to Catholicism, happily, but I did do one thing he did. That is, in middle age I moved to a seaside town and got into a right barney with the local powers-that-be.

The terrorist attacks were a tragedy for the people who died or were injured, and for their families and friends. For the rest of us, they were a wake-up call as to what type of lunatics we are dealing with. And sleepwalking our way back into ill-sorted, dewy-eyed people personal politics is the last thing we need to set us up for the fight ahead. Come on you liberals, don't give me the morbid pleasure of saying, 'I told you so' again.

When a man wants to relax, he will slob out and really relax. Or he will pursue a hobby - anything from building models to watching sport.

A wedding is a funeral which masquerades as a feast. And the greater the pageantry, the deeper the savagery.