When your sad--like really sad--you only want to be with other people who are sad.

...So please, be tolerant of those who describe a sporting moment as their best ever. We do not lack imagination, nor have we had sad and barren lives; it is just that real life is paler, duller, and contains less potential for unexpected delirium.

I'd thought I'd live with my wife, but I couldn't find one.

I don't want my books to exclude anyone, but if they have to, then I would rather they excluded the people who feel they are too smart for them!

There had been times when he knew, somewhere in him, that he would get used to it, whatever it was, because he had learnt that some hard things became softer after a very little while.

That’s the thing with the young these days, isn’t it? They watch too many happy endings. Everything has to be wrapped up, with a smile and a tear and a wave. Everyone has learned, found love, seen the error of their ways, discovered the joys of monogamy, or fatherhood, or filial duty, or life itself. In my day, people got shot at the end of films, after learning only that life is hollow, dismal, brutish, and short.

Cynicism is our shared common language, the Esperanto that actually caught on, and though I'm not fluent in it - I like too many things, and I'm not envious of enough people - I know enough to get by.