Going on things like rollercoasters is not really up my street I guess. I don't feel like I need to do stunts. I'm too scared and I don't think it's my job.

I like extremely effeminate dogs like terriers or schnauzers. I make an exception for giant schnauzers and big poodles. Basically, I like dogs which can be dyed day-glo colours.

You always have to find something to say about the subject and in seven cases out of ten there is nothing to say.

I'm not against architecture per se, I'm just against bad architecture.

I like looking at the countryside as well as anyone... a little countryside goes a long way, but it's almost like the DNA of a civilisation is in its cities.

I think television is a medium which has the potential to do great things but has been traduced by these... terrible people who rise through the ranks.

I genuinely find it difficult to think of places that I'd never want to see again. It might be because part of my career has been concerned with writing about topography.

The only bright feature of cultural relativism's triumph is that it has become establishment orthodoxy and will thus one day be derided, resisted and overthrown.

I do make myself be interested in places in a way that I don't make myself be interested in people.

When I started writing fiction it always seemed in retrospect (I didn't realise at the time) that it was always caused by environments rather than by incidents and characters.

If you have slightly pathological interest in all the components of places, it forces you to engage with them in a way that perhaps otherwise you wouldn't, and that's the only way I can put it.

Prayer at its highest is a two-way conversation-and for me the most important part is listening to God's replies.

Tonight I have nothing to do but to dream and hope.

When you are an outcast, even a tossed stone can be cherished.

It was duck apocalypse!

I'm happy, I'm in a good place, I'm looking forward to my future.

Every breath you take, you are getting closer to the grave. But every breath you take, you can also get closer to your liberation.

I had been brought up in a church which decides everything and permits no doubts, so that having rejected one article of faith I was forced to reject the rest.

In any high stress situation you are going to default to your level of training...period.

I remember writing standup jokes without having done sets. But as soon as I did my first set, it didn't matter. Everything I thought would work didn't work. And everything I was iffy on was funny.

I feel like I'm more of the underdog, which is kind of nice.