Busy is good, isn't it? Busy means we're hard at it, achieving our ends or "goals." Haven't had time to stop, or look around or think. That's considered the sign of a life well lived ... Suppose, though, you're not sure that what you're doing is at all worthwhile. Suppose you blundered into it over a spoonful of lime pickle. It's easy, it pays quite well. But really it's a distraction. It stops you thinking about what you ought to be doing.

There you are, sir. There's nothing more than to love and be loved.

Knowing one was comprised of recycled matter only and that selfhood was a delusion did not take away the aching of the heart.

The nicest characters in A Week in December research are, in fact, Muslims - and their religious devotion is one of the things that defines them.

I'd never chosen to be alone, but that was the way things had turned out, and I'd grown used to it.

One thing about London is that when you step out into the night, it swallows you.

I don't like being rumbled, I like to be invisible.