I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance.

As children everyone thinks their family is weird and they're upset by the weirdness of their own family.

If you go looking for loonies and religious fanatics and dropouts and freaks, I dare say you'll find it.

I will defend the absolute value of Mozart over Miley Cyrus, of course I will, but we should be wary of false dichotomies. You do not have to choose between one or the other. You can have both. The human cultural jungle should be as varied and plural as the Amazonian rainforest. We are all richer for biodiversity. We may decide that a puma is worth more to us than a caterpillar, but surely we can agree that the habitat is all the better for being able to sustain each.

I like to think of myself at home in the armchair, writing, smoking and occasionally wandering down the shop.

I can understand the Greek idea that there are these these principles of lightening or of war or of wisdom and to embody them, to personify them into a Athena or Aries or whichever god you want makes enormous sense.

Coming out as gay was an easy enough matter for me, since I worked in a profession where being gay had a long history of being accepted.