The air itself was ebony, like the denial, the refutation, of the idea of light.

If you want to know the real meaning of pornography, it is the utter dissociation of love and sex, the banishment of love from the sexual arena.

Every 10 years you're a different person, and the really great books evolve with you as you get older. They're full of new rewards.

No novel has ever changed anything, as far as I can see. And the great satirists, like Swift and Dickens, tend to write about abuses and injustices that have already been partially corrected - you write about it after it's over.

If every inhabitant of a liberal democracy believes in liberal democracy, then it doesn't matter what creed or colour they are.

It is terrible to see someone being beaten up by the English language.

Everyone is right up there at the very brink of their pain limit.