Suicide is the most private and mysterious of acts, inexplicable because the chief actor is never there to explain it.

Charm is often despised but I can never see why. No one has it who isn't capable of genuinely liking others, at least at the actual moment of meeting and speaking. Charm is always genuine; it may be superficial but it isn't false.

I don't see why escapist literature shouldn't also be a work of art.

People were excited by violence. What, after all, was the sexual act but a voluntarily endured assault, a momentary death?

The tragedy of loss is not that we grieve, but that we cease to grieve, and then perhaps the dead are dead at last.

I wonder if childhood is ever really happy. Just as well, perhaps. To be blissfully happy so young would leave one always seeking to recapture the unobtainable. Like those people who were always happiest at school or university. Always going back. No reunion ever missed. It always seemed to me rather pathetic.

A politician is required to listen to humbug, talk humbug, condone humbug. The most we can hope for is that we don't actually believe it.