The whole point of marriage is to stop you getting anywhere near real life. You think it's a great struggle with the mystery of being. It's more like being smothered in warm cocoa. There's sex, but it's not what you think. Marvellous, for the first fortnight. Then every Wednesday. If there isn't a good late-night concert on the Third. Meanwhile you become a biological functionary. An agent of the great female womb, spawning away, dumping its goods in your lap for succour. Daddy, daddy, we're here, and we're expensive.

Reading someone else's newspaper is like sleeping with someone else's wife. Nothing seems to be precisely in the right place, and when you find what you are looking for, it is not clear then how to respond to it.

If God had been a liberal, we wouldn't have had the Ten Commandments - we'd have the Ten Suggestions.

If God had meant us to have group sex, I guess he'd have given us all more organs.

Marriage is the most advanced form of warfare in the modern world.

English history is all about men liking their fathers, and American history is all about men hating their fathers and trying to burn down everything they ever did.

My experience of ships is that on them one makes an interesting discovery about the world. One finds one can do without it completely.