I used to be a reasonably careless and adventurous person before I had children; now I am morbidly obsessed by seat-belts and constantly afraid that low-flying aircraft will drop on my children's school.

The human mind can bear plenty of reality but not too much intermittent gloom.

Novels, since the birth of the genre, have been full of rejected, seduced, and abandoned maidens, whose proper fate is to die.

The women are always vixens or monsters. They can't just be normal people in the book.

I've always thought that very few people grow old as admirably as academics. At least books never let them down.

I confidently predict the collapse of capitalism and the beginning of history. Something will go wrong in the machinery that converts money into money, the banking system will collapse totally, and we will be left having to barter to stay alive. Those who can dig in their garden will have a better chance than the rest. I'll be all right; I've got a few veg.

When nothing is sure, everything is possible.