It's extremely unlucky to be superstitious, for no other reason than it is always unlucky to be colossally stupid.

The Gay News critic wrote that I 'carried the lilt of the Irish without the brogue'.

Families where there is not much laughter I think are signs of some sort of dysfunctionality or sickness.

This is the point. One technology doesn't replace another, it complements. Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.

[My best tip for overcoming depression is] to regard it as being like the weather. It's not your responsibility that it's raining, but it is real when it rains, and the fact that it's raining does not mean that the rain is never going to stop. The only thing to do is to believe that, one day, it won't be raining and accept it so you can find a mental umbrella to shield yourself from the worst. The sun will eventually come up.

I have Van Gogh's ear for music

I am gay. I am a Jew. My mother lost over a dozen of her family to Hitler's anti-Semitism. Every time in Russia (and it is constantly) a gay teenager is forced into suicide, a lesbian 'correctively' raped, gay men and women beaten to death by neo-Nazi thugs while the Russian police stand idly by, the world is diminished and I for one, weep anew at seeing history repeat itself.