I don't see much point in doing things for a pure joke. Every now and then you need a joke, but not so much as the people who spend all their lives constructing joke palaces think you do.

I acquired a hunger for fairy tales in the dark days of blackout and blitz in the Second World War.

What literature can and should do is change the people who teach the people who don't read the books.

No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed.

Art does not exist for politics, or for instruction- it exists primarily for pleasure, or it is nothing.

Things are not what they seem.

I think the names of colors are at the edge, between where language fails and where it's at its most powerful.

I worry about anthropomorphism as a form of self-deception. (The Christian religion is an anthropomorphic account of the universe.)

Narration is as much a part of human nature as breath and the circulation of the blood.

I think vestigially there's a synesthete in me but not like a real one who immediately knows what colour Wednesday is.

He felt changed, but there was no one to tell.

When you love someone you let them take care of you.

Don’t find work, find an interest and do it with love. If you can earn a living doing something interesting, then you will never have to work.

You actually cannot sell the idea of freedom, democracy, diversity, as if it were a brand attribute and not reality -- not at the same time as you're bombing people, you can't.

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.

Art is my cure to all this madness, sadness and loss of belonging in the world & through it I'll walk myself home.

It is not 'Have I got a chance?' It is more often: 'Have I seen my chance?

It is generally the trustful and optimistic people who can afford to retreat. The loveless and faithless ones are compelled by their pessimism to attack.

I open events for museums and I do charity work and photography.

If you choose to be obedient to God, God meets you with divine enablement.

Life is a do-it-yourself kit, so do it yourself. Work. Practice.