Soon I will fall asleep and I will wake from this terrible dream. The endless night will fall, and I will rise. I long for that night. I do not fear it. I have had my fill of fear. I have stared too long into the abyss, and now the abyss stares back at me.

My first favourite book was Are You My Mother? A picture book about a lost bird. After that my favourites changed almost yearly. I loved everything by Roald Dahl, but my favourite was probably Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. A librarian gave me a first edition of that book, which I treasure.

Why did they come billions of miles just to stare at us? It's rude.

He spreads his fingers over my heart, like he’s holding it, like it belongs to him, the hard-fought-for territory he’s won fair and square.

Then I strip the pants away from each leg, like peeling a banana. That's it, the perfect metaphor: peeling a banana.

There's the bullshit you know that you know; the bullshit you don't know and know you don't know; and the bullshit you just think you know but really don't.

I do not mean to mock or ridicule your life's work, for in one way at least it mimics my own: We have dedicated our lives to the pursuit of phantoms. The difference is the nature of those phantoms. Mine exist between other men's ears; yours live solely between your own.