It's amazing how sudden the effect is - it must be the result of a deep atavistic mating urge buried inside us. A glance and you think: 'Yes, this is the one, this one is right for me.' Every instinct in your body seems to sing in unison.

She's half mad and three parts drunk.

I have to start my real life soon, before I die of boredom and frustration.

I have teken refuge in the doctrine that advises one not to seek tranquility in certainty but in permanently suspended judgement.

To live as an artist requires hard work or some extraordinary good fortune to come your way.

Is that a good definition of marking the ageing watershed? That moment when you realize - quite rationally, quite unemotionally - that the world in the not-so-distant future will not contain you: that the trees you planted will continue growing but you will not be there to see them.

There are things in life we don't understand, and when we meet them, all we can do is let them alone.