It's still easier to find the correct Hoover bag than to find one pure person, one pure faith, on the globe.

I don't actually believe in the extension of consciousness after death.

This is what divorce is: taking things you no longer want from people you no longer love.

Everything shrinks. Individual character. Friendships. Language. Sensibility.

It's a feeling of happiness that knocks me clean out of adjectives. I think sometimes that the best reason for writing novels is to experience those four and a half hours after you write the final word.

These days, it feels to me like you make a devil's pact when you walk into this country. You hand over your passport at the check-in, you get stamped, you want to make a little money, get yourself started... but you mean to go back! Who would want to stay? Cold, wet, miserable; terrible food, dreadful newspapers - who would want to stay? In a place where you are never welcomed, only tolerated. Just tolerated. Like you are an animal finally house-trained.

You can feel bad... I mean, that's not illegal.