Sex is the last refuge of the miserable.

I take it to be axiomatic that people are revolted by witnessing the shameless gratification of an appetite they do not share.

I am the last of Britain's stately homos.

I recommend limiting one's involvement in other people's lives to a pleasantly scant minimum. This may seem too stoical a position in these madly passionate times, but madly passionate people rarely make good on their madly passionate promises.

Politics are not an instrument for effecting social change; they are the art of making the inevitable appear to be a matter of wise human choice.

There are three reasons for becoming a writer: the first is that you need the money; the second that you have something to say that you think the world should know; the third is that you can't think what to do with the long winter evenings.

What matters is not whether you put your fork or knife together because you've finished your meal, or something like that. What matters is that you don't offend people, or hurt their feelings by mistake by saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing.