Travel was pointless. It removed you from the place in which you had a meaning, and to which you gave meaning in return by dedicating your life to it, and it spirited you away into fairylands where you were, and looked, frankly absurd.

One of the things I've learnt is not to depend on there being a woman in your life to make it work. I love my work, I love my children, I've got wonderful friends, you know, I have a nice life.

The history of life was not the bumbling progress - the very English, middle-class progress - Victorian thought had wanted it to be, but violent, a thing of dramatic, cumulative transformations: in the old formulation, more revolution than evolution.

You can't have modern states based on ideas which have been out of date for a thousand years.

What kind of Christmas present would Jesus ask Santa for?

A figure of speech is a shifty thing; it can be twisted or it can be straight.

So India’s problem turns out to be the world’s problem. What happened in India has happened in God’s name. The problem’s name is God.