English, as a subject, never really got over its upstart nature. It tries to bulk itself up with hopeless jargon and specious complexity, tries to imitate subjects it can never be.

'A reality shaped around your own desires' - there is something sociopathic in that ambition.

It's difficult to tell the truth about how a book begins. The truth, as far as it can be presented to other people, is either wholly banal or too intimate.

The lack of alternatives to an illegal action does not legitimise that action.

The nineties, ecstatic decade!

People don't settle for people. They resolve to be with them. It takes faith. You draw a circle in the sand and agree to stand in it and believe in it.

Surely there is something to be said for drawing a circle around our attention and remaining within that circle. But how large should this circle be?