Fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us.

Friendship is also about liking a person for their failings, their weakness. It's also about mutual help, not about exploitation.

The Japanese have perfected good manners and made them indistinguishable from rudeness.

My house is a place I have spent many years improving to the point where I have no desire to leave it.

Loneliness in travel directs you and tells you about yourself. You don't become lonely unless you're alone.

Albania in 1994 was the strangest place I've ever seen. It was like walking into the looking glass: falling apart, paranoid people, anarchy, no one farming, full of thieves. It was beyond any Third World country. They were living in their own private nightmare.

The conversation, like many others I had with people on trains, derived an easy candour from the shared journey, the comfort of the dining car, and the certain knowledge that neither of us would see each other again.