Knowing what I now know I would never have done anything so fatuous; but then I never would have known what I know now had I not.

We always make the mistake, the fatal mistake in the case of military people, of imagining that each war will be a kind of version of the one that happened previously.

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.

A cousin of mine who was a casualty surgeon in Manhattan tells me that he and his colleagues had a one-word nickname for bikers: Donors. Rather chilling.

I am magnificently prepared for the long littleness of life. There is diddley-squat for me to look forward to. Zilch, zero, zip-all, sweet lipperty-pipperty nothing. The only thought that will give me the energy to carry on is that someone has a life which would be diminished by my departure from it.

I have Van Gogh's ear for music

I think faith in each other is much harder than faith in God...