He awoke at six, as usual. He needed no alarm clock. He was already comprehensively alarmed.

Your purpose when driving is not to arrive at your destination safely or quickly. Your purpose when driving is...to impress your personality on the road.

I say the sentences again and again in my head until they sound right.

When you’ve lost all your play, guess what love becomes. Work. Work that gets harder every hour.

I'm not interested in making a diagnostic novel or a concern. I'm 100 percent committed in fiction to the pleasure principle - that's what fiction is, and should be.

Let me assure you that the humourless as a bunch don't just not know what's funny, they don't know what's serious. They have no common sense, either, and shouldn't be trusted with anything.

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.