The space between the young reader’s eyeballs and the printed page is a holy place and officialdom should trample all over it at their peril.’

All tapes left in a car for more than about a fortnight metamorphose into Best of Queen albums.

By the time you've reached your sixties, you do know that one day you will die, and knowing that is at least the beginning of wisdom.

I intend, before the endgame looms, to die sitting in a chair in my own garden with a glass of brandy in my hand and Thomas Tallis on the iPod. Oh, and since this is England, I had better add, "If wet, in the library." Who could say that this is bad?

Life doesn't happen in chapters - at least, not regular ones.

Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.

People don't like change. But make the change fast enough and you go from one type of normal to another.