A German wine label is one of the things life's too short for, a daunting testimony to that peculiar nation's love of detail and organization.

One of the great benefits of organised religion is that you can be forgiven your sins, which must be a wonderful thing. I mean, I carry my sins around with me, there's nobody there to forgive them.

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.

Twentieth century music is like paedophilia. No matter how persuasively and persistently its champions urge their cause, it will never be accepted by the public at large, who will continue to regard it with incomprehension, outrage and repugnance.

Doing what you wanted to do was the only training, and the only preliminary, needed for doing more of what you wanted to do.

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

It is no wonder that people are so horrible when they start life as children.