If you associate enough with older people who do enjoy their lives, who are not stored away in any golden ghettos, you will gain a sense of continuity and of the possibility for a full life.

He's never known anything like it! But then, he has never known anything to write home about, so this is nothing to write home about.

I cannot say that I write with any social objective. One writes because one loves writing, really.

I was delighted to not go to university. I couldn't wait to be out of education.

I smoke too much whether it's going well or badly. After all these years, I definitely associate having a pen in my hand with having an ashtray just out of eye line.

Life is a gamble, at terrible odds - if it was a bet you wouldn't take it.

Good things, when short, are twice as good.