Manners are about imagination, ultimately. They are about imagining being the other person.

Do you lend books and DVDs to people? If so, don't you always regret it? All my life I have forced books on to people who have subsequently forgotten all about it. Meanwhile, on my shelves sit many orphaned books loaned to me over the years by trusting, innocent souls - some as long ago as the Seventies.

Sticklers never read a book without a pencil at hand, to correct the typographical errors. In short, we are unattractive know-all obsessives who get things out of proportion and are in continual peril of being disowned by our exasperated families.

The rule is: don’t use commas like a stupid person. I mean it.

Punctuation marks are the traffic signals of language: they tell us to slow down, notice this, take a detour, and stop.

What I have always liked about Brighton is its impersonality. Since the 18th century, people have come, used the place and gone home again.

In my worst moments, I think the biggest effect of 'Eats, Shoots & Leaves' was to kill the happiness of people who had previously skipped through life, unaware of all the atrocities lurking in the world around them.