Literature got me into this mess and literature is going to have to get me out of it.

The question to ask about the writer isn't 'Why does he behave so badly?' but 'What does he gain by wearing this mask?

You cannot observe people through an ideology. Your ideology observes for you.

Because that is when you love somebody - when you see them being game in the face of the worst. Not courageous. Not heroic. Just game.

The hard part is, of course, the proximity of death. The number has no meaning as long as you're fit and healthy. But you know that you only have so much time left and you don't know how much it is. It could be a very short time.

When he [Joe Lewis] was asked upon his retirement about his long career, Joe sweetly summed it up in just ten words. 'I did the best I could with what I had'.

The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It's getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That's how we know we're alive: we're wrong.