He really did not care whether he survived or not, so long as it rendered him unconscious and absolved him of responsibility.

...and there was nothing to do except to wait and to hurt.

Madness doesn't happen to someone alone. Very few people have experiences that are theirs alone.

Payments to the disabled are getting slashed and people like me are getting a tax cut. Who could possibly think that is a good thing?

I don't remember deciding to become a writer. You decide to become a dentist or a postman. For me, writing is like being gay. You finally admit that this is who you are, you come out and hope that no one runs away.

And it occurred to him that there were two parts to being a better person. One part was thinking about other people. The other part was not giving a toss what other people thought.

I am atheist in a very religious mould. I'm always asking myself the big questions. Where did we come from? Is there a meaning to all of this? I read the King James Bible, as all English writers should. And when I find myself in church, I edit the hymns as I sing them.