I do give books as gifts sometimes, when people would rather have one than a new Ferrari.

The functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion and empathy.

The whisper of the dusk is night shedding its husk.

Where there is cake, there is hope. And there is always cake.

Petting, scratching, and cuddling a dog could be as soothing to the mind and heart as deep meditation and almost as good for the soul as prayer.

Nothing is worse than being alone on the evening of the day when one's cow has exploded.

Only once in a generation does anything as fresh as a vomiting detective come along.

The hands of every clock are shears, trimming us away scrap by scrap, and every time piece with a digital readout blinks us towards implosion.

Most people tend to think the best of those who are blessed with beauty; we have difficulty imagining that physical perfection can conceal twisted emotions or a damaged mind.

Any drunk who has tried to put his car where a lamppost stands is a self-educated physicist.

Given my heritage and the ordeal of my childhood, I sometimes wonder why I myself am not insane. Maybe I am.

Ah, ye brethren, that God whom I created was human work and human madness, like all the Gods!

If you don’t find yourself and purpose, the world will be worse for it

It is not art in the professionalized sense about which I care, but that which is created sacredly, as a result of a deep inner experience, with all of oneself, and that becomes 'art' in time.

Words are like untying a corset - you can move into this great space with them.

If you desire to be good, begin by believing that you are wicked.

The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded.

Lenity is a part of justice; but she must not speak too loud for fear of waking justice.

The TV licence people just can't believe we don't have a television. I'm a bolshie git. I shout at them things like, 'I don't need TV, I'm an intellectual.'

Don't be insecure, if your heart is pure

That’s the other thing I learned that day, that the truth, however shocking or uncomfortable, in the end leads to liberation and dignity.