As a Londoner I was able to see how the world of power and money cast its shadow on those who failed.

I had to paraphrase the paraphrase.

The world is a sea in which we all must surely drown.

I strike up conversations all the time and it is very interesting, finding out about things I know nothing about.

I don't know if I have a voice of my own. I don't see me being an important person with something to say. I haven't. I've got nothing to say. My opinion is of no consequence or value.

There is no humiliation worse than the consciousness of a wasted life. It stains the spirit, forestalls hope, and destroys any motive for action or change.

I wanted to be a poet when I was 20; I had no interest in fiction or biography and precious little interest in history, but those three elements in my life have become the most important.