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

Like vichyssoise, revenge is a dish best served cold.

Literature is the only access to truth we have on this planet.

My secret is that I have never thought there is a secret to anything in life. Passion. Love. Drive. Work. Work. Work. Dull but true.

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

If a thing can be said in ten words, I may be relied upon to take a hundred to say it. I ought to apologize for that. I ought to prune, pare and extirpate excess growth, but I will not. I like words—strike that, I love words—and while I am fond of the condensed and economical use of them in poetry, in song lyrics, in Twitter, in good journalism and smart advertising, I love the luxuriant profusion and mad scatter of them too.

In a dung heap, even a plastic bead can gleam like a sapphire.