There arent many great passages written about food, but I love one by George Millar, who worked for the SOE in the second world war and wrote a book called Horned Pigeon. He had been on the run and hadnt eaten for a week, and his description of the cheese fondue he smells in the peasant kitchen of a house in eastern France is unbelievable.

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.

Our own choices might not be as good as those that are made for us.

If you have only one life, you cant altogether ignore the question: are you enjoying it?

I think closeness to death would be pretty exhilarating in a way, and friendship, yeh, and selflessness, a kind of selflessness, a sense of your own worthlessness, I think, is pretty exhilarating.

We all operate on different levels of awareness. Half the time I don't know what I'm doing.

Why take drugs specifically designed to send you insane?