Are you pro- or anti-macassar?

Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us.

I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork.

Murals in restaurants are on a par with the food in museums.

Life is a zoo in a jungle.

It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us.

You can make a sordid thing sound like a brilliant drawing-room comedy. Probably a fear we have of facing up to the real issues. Could you say we were guilty of Noel Cowardice?

I write when I'm inspired, and I see to it that I'm inspired at nine o'clock every morning.

The difficulty with marriage is that we fall in love with a personality, but must live with a character.

The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.

A hundred years ago Hester Prynne of The Scarlet Letter was given an A for adultery; today she would rate no better than a C-plus.

If you don’t know exactly where you’re going, how will you know when you get there?

All stories are ultimately about the fall.

The human species really could have faced global thermonuclear war. During seventy years of Cold War we grew used to it.

But I simply can't stand a view limited to this earth, I feel life is so small unless it has windows into other worlds...I like mathematics largely because it is not human.

To remind a man of the good turns you have done him is very much like a reproach.

Art is the supreme communicator of diverse cultures and ideas in a common frame of understanding, a virtual bridge across time. It is also the universal link into genius.

It's not how much you have that makes people look up to you, it's who you are.

I like to stay at home and make cinema in my head.

I consider writing practice a true Zen practice because it all comes back at you. You can't fool anyone because it's on the page.

You can't be a writer if you don't write, it's just that simple.