Guys like you make life easy for some women.

The best argument is an undeniably good book.

And I'm convinced that knowing the names of things braces people up.

Well, everybody has a history.

There are evils that have the ability to survive identification and go on for ever... money, for instance, or war.

We are all such accidents. We do not make up history and culture. We simply appear, not by our own choice. We make what we can of our condition with the means available. We must accept the mixture as we find it - the impurity of it, the tragedy of it, the hope of it.

With a novelist, like a surgeon, you have to get a feeling that you've fallen into good hands - someone from whom you can accept the anesthetic with confidence.