Schadenfreude is so nutritious.

I think it's a misreading of Dostoevsky to think of him as a programmatic theist. He's actually much closer to someone like William James. He's actually a pragmatist.

Most of us have had that experience - at around puberty - of realising that, despite whatever efforts we put into our chosen sports, we will become at best competent.

The fictional work is a kind of actor that wears a satirical garb but can put on other costumes as well.

Here we meet, on the page, naked and unadorned: shorn of class, race, gender, sexual identity, age and nationality.

You know that sickening feeling of inadequacy and over-exposure you feel when you look upon your own empurpled prose? Relax into the awareness that this ghastly sensation will never, ever leave you, no matter how successful and publicly lauded you become. It is intrinsic to the real business of writing and should be cherished.

There's a flip side to having prominent public intellectuals, which is that they start meddling in politics and often with quite disastrous results.