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

The trouble with history is that there are too many people involved

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!

I'd stay there, or not, and I'd eat, or not, and I'd drink, or not, and go home, or not, and what I did or didn't do wouldn't matter to anyone at all. And I walked for most of the day. Do people get sad on holiday sometimes? I can imagine they do, having all that time to think.

Reciprocation was a pretty powerful stimulant to the imagination.

I couldn’t bear to think about the proper future, so I just tried to make things better for the next twenty minutes or so, over and over again.

Every time people force themselves to carry on with a book they're not enjoying, they reinforce the idea that reading is a duty.