Growing older, I have lost the need to be political, which means ... the need to be left. I am driven to grudging toleration of the Conservative Party because it is the party of non-politics, of resistance to politics.

Death has this much to be said for it: You don't have to get out of bed for it. Wherever you happen to be They bring it to you—free.

Your attitude measures up to the two requirements of love. You want to go to bed with her and can't, and you don't know her very well. Ignorance of the other person topped up with deprivation, Jim. You fit the formula all right, and what's more you want to go on fitting it.

Only a world without love strikes me as instantly and decisively more terrible than one without music.

I was never an Angry Young Man. I am angry only when I hit my thumb with a hammer.

More always means worse.

Now and then I become conscious of having the reputation of being one of the great drinkers, if not one of the great drunks, of our time.