Great novels are above all great fairy tales . . . literature does not tell the truth but makes it up.

Knowing you have something good to read before bed is among the most pleasurable of sensations.

And the rest is rust and stardust.

Do not be angry with the rain; it simply does not know how to fall upwards.

Mind you, sometimes the angels smoke, hiding it with their sleeves, and when the archangel comes, they throw the cigarettes away: that’s when you get shooting stars.

Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form.

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

The writer's job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them.

There are aphorisms that, like airplanes, stay up only while they are in motion.

I think it is all a matter of love: the more you love a memory, the stronger and stranger it is.

Loneliness as a situation can be corrected, but as a state of mind it is an incurable illness.

Beauty, coveted though it was, could not outlive you. Only actions would.

Depression is an illness, and no fault of the person who suffers from it

Wine is just a conversation waiting to happen.

Smokey Robinson writes the heartfelt songs, whereas it was my job to write the songs about weakness and failure in love.

Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed.

I seem to play a lot of losers.

Art has always been and is in its very essence the boldest departure from nature. It is the bridge into the spirit world.

In its happiest efforts, translation is but approximation, and its efforts are not often happy. A translation may be good as translation, but it cannot be an adequate reproduction of the original.

Everything is about balance. You can't work, work, work, work without any play.

I can't understand why people in Scotland rave about Darren Fletcher.