No point in thinking, you just have to get on with life. We only have one after all, we should try and do our best. We can never get it right, but we must try.

I'm a lapsed Quaker. I don't go to meetings any more. But I'm very drawn to Catholicism - all that glitter. I'd love to be a Catholic. I think it would be fantastic - faith, forgiveness, absolution, extreme unction - all these wonderful words. I don't think anyone who was ever born a Catholic hasn't died a Catholic, no matter how lapsed they are.

(although anyone with half a brain must surely be mired in existential gloom all the time)

Sometimes,' Sylvie said, 'one can mistake gratitude for love.

When I'm writing, my neural pathways get blocked. I can't read. I can barely hold a conversation without forgetting words and names. I wish I could wear the same clothes and eat the same food each day.

I spent four years doing a doctorate in postmodern American literature. I can recognize it when I see it.

Time was a thief, he stole your life away from you and the only way you could get it back was to outwit him and snatch it right back.