The prospect of his future life stretched before him like a sentence; not a prison sentence but a long-winded sentence with a lot of unnecessary subordinate clauses, as he was soon in the habit of quipping during Happy Hour pickup time at the local campus bars and pubs. He couldn’t say he was looking forward to it, this rest-of-his-life.

History, as I recall, was never this winsome, and especially not this clean, but the real thing would never sell: most people prefer a past in which nothing smells.

A divorce is like an amputation: you survive it, but there's less of you.

for me the novel is a social vehicle, it reflects society.

You hear doom and gloom about the Internet ruining young people's command of English - that's nonsense.

These things sneak up on him for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It's probably a vitamin deficiency.

The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read.