It's in Macbeth: "The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon." I seldom have occasion to pull it out, but it's ready and waiting!

Eating is our earliest metaphor, preceding our consciousness of gender difference, race, nationality, and language. We eat before we talk.

Nobody dies from lack of sex. It's lack of love we die from.

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer.

My parents were gardeners themselves, and perforce they used environmental techniques because it was during the war, and you didn't have the new sorts of chemicals.

I stand on the corner, pretending I am a tree.

Maybe that's what love is, I thought: it's being pissed off.