I sometimes feel that more lousy dishes are presented under the banner of pate than any other.

I'll pour you the first one and after that, if you don't have one, it's your own f****** fault. You know where it is.

Never despise a drink because it is easy to make and/or uses commercial mixes. Unquestioning devotion to authenticity is, in any department of life, a mark of the naive - or worse.

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.

Nice things are nicer than nasty ones.

It scored right away with me by being the smooth, fine-grained sort, not the coarse flaky, dry-on-the-outside rubbish full of chunds of gut and gristle to testify to its authenticity.

When starting to think about any novel, part of the motive is: I'm going to show them, this time.