Doubt, it seems to me, is the central condition of a human being in the twentieth century.

People would come and threaten them. And they would respond by putting the book in the window. Behind that, the publishers, many of whom were menaced and receiving anonymous phone calls of the very menacing kind and so, almost everybody - not everybody, but almost everybody held the line.

In television, the 60-minute series, 'The Wire' and 'Mad Men' and so on, the writer is the primary creative artist.

Masks beneath masks until suddenly the bare bloodless skull.

Names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth's marvels, beneath the dust of habit.

Sometimes, people trying to commit suicide manage it in a manner that leaves them breathless with astonishment.

The frustrating part of being tagged 'controversial' is people go looking for trouble where there isn't any to look for.