We who write in English are fortunate to have the richest and most versatile language in the world. Respect it.

If this were fiction, could even the most brilliant novelist contrive to make credible so short a period in which pride had been subdued and prejudice overcome?

I believe that political correctness can be a form of linguistic fascism, and it sends shivers down the spine of my generation who went to war against fascism.

I learned early and at that kitchen table that there are ways of avoiding, without guilt, the commitments of love.

Not so much two ships passing in the night as two ships sailing together for a time but always bound for different ports.

Of the four billion life forms which have existed on this planet, three billion, nine hundred and sixty million are now extinct. We don't know why. Some by wanton extinction, some through natural catastrophe, some destroyed by meteorites and asteroids. In the light of these mass extinctions it really does seem unreasonable to suppose that Homo sapiens should be exempt. Our species will have been one of the shortest-lived of all, a mere blink, you may say, in the eye of time.

Feel, he told himself, feel, feel, feel. Even if what you feel is pain, only let yourself feel.