To have humanism we must first be convinced of our humanity. As we move further into decadence this becomes more difficult.

Despair came over her, as it will when nobody around has any sexual relevance to you.

But on the way home tonight, you wish you'd picked him up, held him a bit. Just held him, very close to your heart, his cheek by the hollow of your shoulder, full of sleep. As it it were you who could, somehow, save him. For the moment not caring who you're supposed to be registered as. For the moment, anyway, no longer who the Caesars say you are.

Some typewriters in Whitehall, in the Pentagon, killed more civilians than our little A4 could have ever hoped to.

All investigations of Time, however sophisticated or abstract, have at their true base the human fear of mortality.

Everybody gets told to write about what they know. The trouble with many of us is that at the earlier stages of life we think we know everything- or to put it more usefully, we are often unaware of the scope and structure of our ignorance.

This spiritualist, this statistician, what are you anyway?