Not for the first time in my life, and certainly not for the last, a self-righteous gloom had edged out all semblance of logic.

That is another chamber of my heart that shows no electrical activity - the chamber that used to flicker into life when I saw a film that moved me, or read a book that inspired me, or listened to music that made me want to cry. I closed that chamber myself, for all the usual reasons. And now I seem to have made a pact with some philistine devil: if I don't attempt to re-open it, I will be allowed just enough energy and optimism to get through a working day without wanting to hang myself.

Like all books that have that kind of momentum, it starts from word of mouth.

Complaining about boring football is a little like complaining about the sad ending of King Lear: it misses the point somehow.

For the best part of 40 years she had genuinely believed that not doing things would somehow prevent regret, when, of course, the exact opposite was true.

We're here for such a short amount of time. Why do we spend any of it building sandcastles?

Books are, let's face it, better than everything else. If we played Cultural Fantasy Boxing League, and made books go fifteen rounds in the ring against the best that any other art form had to offer, then books would win pretty much every time.