Under every friendship there is a difficult sentence that must be said, in order that the friendship can be survived.

When I was 13, I really used to skip down the street, happy in thinking, "Oh, well, someone's suffering pain in order for me to feel this pleasure."

Some people--Samad for example--will tell you not to trust people who overuse the phrase "at the end of the day"--football managers, estate agents, salesmen of all kinds--but Archie's never felt that way about it. Prudent use of said phrase never failed to convince him that his interlocutor was getting to the bottom of things, to the fundamentals.

He had her in his heart, but not always in his mind.

She loved you in the morning because the day was new.

Something in me was changed by Lincoln in the Bardo, and the great sublime/grotesque risk of [George Saunders'] ghosts was a part of it.

I wrote 'White Teeth' in the late nineties. I didn't really feel trepidatious about it. It was a different time.