Atheism is not just about not believing there is a God, but on the assumption that there is one, what kind of God is he?

How to seperate the humiliation from the loss, that's the catch. You can never be sure if what tortures you is the pain of being without someone you love or the embarrassment of admitting that you have been rejected.

How can one not be fond of something that the Daily Mail despises?

First love is unrequited ultimately because it’s so huge.It’s such an act of giving and it requires so much back that it can never be given back. It’s like an atom bomb. It’s like… It’s all the energy of who you are and who you want to be and what you love and what you hope to be explodes. It is impossible for a single... human being to offer that back to you in a mutual way.

It is the useless things that make life worth living and that make life dangerous too: wine, love, art, beauty. Without them life is safe, but not worth bothering with.

Lectures broke into one's day and were clearly a terrible waste of time, necessary no doubt if you were reading law or medicine or some other vocational subject, but in the case of English, the natural thing to do was talk a lot, listen to music, drink coffee and wine, read books, and go to plays, perhaps be in plays.

I think I'm most nervous about revealing how nervous I have always been. People think me calm, confident, poised. Inside I'm a jelly.