Great writers arrive among us like new diseases - threatening, powerful, impatient for patients to pick up their virus, irresistible.

The task of the artist at any time is uncompromisingly simple to discover what has not yet been done, and to do it.

I used to carry a copy of Ulysses with me everywhere just in case I was knocked down by a bus. It seemed more important than having clean underwear.

Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings And some are treasured for their markings - They cause the eyes to melt Or the body to shriek without pain.

The task of the artist at any time is uncompromisingly simple — to discover what has not yet been done, and to do it.

No one is exempt and everyone's pain has a different smell. At night, when all the colours die, they hide in pairsand read about themselves—in colour, with their eyelids shut.

In his autobiography Stravinsky relates that the first music he remembers was made by a peasant, working his hand in his armpit to produce a rhytmic farting.

He was making music - Howells, Finzi, Holst - so you could see the sounds in the serried air.Serried. Then just as suddenly empty when his sound-proof right hand closed off the notes.

We are born, we get names, we get educated, we get values, we get job and money. But all this is not life, life is love found in friendship, friendship found in love and in love, sacrifice.” Vijay

The paper landed on the table, but the news was stapled to his chest. A tattoo.

You want them to give Batman counselling sessions?""It's genius. Just make Bruce Wayne get over his shit, then, presto, no more Batman. The baddies win by default.

When you're thinking, please remember this: excessive pride is a familiar sin, but a man may just as easily frustrate the will of God through excessive humility.

I think life is about having the mixture of the curiosity of an older person and the imagination of a child.

It's, like, a rule. You can't have Christmas without snow.

You'll never do a whole lot unless you're brave enough to try.

Can there be any greater dotage in the world than for one to guide and direct his courses by the sound of a bell, and not by his own judgment.

The reality is he's a specialist because eight years without a piece of silverware ... that is failure.

I just want to say that dreams do come true. Don't ever give up on your dreams. Sometimes it just takes a little bit longer for some of us.