I still occasionally need to struggle but I now fear it less. The weapons I fight it with are also my consolations: books, music, food, wine, nature.

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

Open your mind to new experiences, particularly to the study of other ­people. Nothing that happens to a writer – however happy, however tragic – is ever wasted.

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.

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

we can forgive anything as long as it isn't done to us.

You never forget the people who were kind to you in childhood, do you, sir?