It's no good looking to writers for definitions of what constitutes proper writing, because you will drive yourself crazy, and you won't find anything that you can build into a coherent whole.

It's love this and love that but of couse it's so easy to love someone you don't know, whether it's George Clooney or Monkey. Staying civil to someone with whom you've ever shared Christmas turkey- now there's a miracle.

She thought I was...soulful, by which I think she means that I don't say much and I always look vaguely pissed off.

That was his mother. When she wasn't crying over the breakfast cereal, she was laughing about killing herself.

…I've had a bad week." What's happened?" Nothing's happened. I've had a bad week in my head, is all.

[H]ow was I supposed to get excited about the oppression of females if they couldn't be trusted to stay upright during the final minutes of a desperately close promotion campaign?

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.