When policemen go to prison in England, they have as bad a time as a pedophile.

Amis is acutely, vibrantly sensitive to the different registers of laughter. He knows that it can be the most affirming and uniquely human sound, and also the most sinister and animalistic one. He understands every note of every octave that separates the liberating shout of mirth from the cackle of a bully or the snigger of a sadist.

You know how it is when two souls meet in a burst of ecstatic volubility, with hearts tickling to hear and to tell, to know everything, to reveal everything, the shared reverence for the other's otherness, a feeling of solitude radiantly snapped by full *contact* - all that?

Time, the human dimension, which makes us everything we are.

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

While making love, we often talk about money. I like it. I like that dirty talk

When it comes to flying, I am a nervous passenger but a confident drinker and Valium-swallower.