I never quite dare to believe I'm brave enough to be an artist, but I'm on the side of artists. I think of myself as a bit of a Salieri, looking with longing eyes at Mozart.

You don't need a Harvard MBA to know that the bedroom and the boardroom are just two sides of the same ballgame.

You are who you are when nobody's watching.

As I say I don't want to kill myself, I just wouldn't mind dying.

Estate agents: like them or loathe them, you'd be mad not to loathe them.

The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know. They are incurious. Incuriousity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is.

People who can change and change again are so much more reliable and happier than those who can’t

Love in all eight tones and all five semitones of the word's full octave.

Wine can be a better teacher than ink, and banter is often better than books

Nothing in this world is at it seems. Except, possibly, porridge.

All the big words -virtue, justice, truth, ...- are dwarfed by the greatness of kindness

You can’t put a price on fun

Her education only made her unhappy thinking about it - that no matter how much she changed her life, she could not change the world that surrounded her.

I think the National League has better biorhythms in July.

The one effective method of defending one's own territory from an offensive by air is to destroy the enemy's air power with the greatest possible speed.

Be brave. Don't be afraid to be stupid.

Sincerity is the way to heaven; to think how to be sincere is the way of man.

I'm just open to new experiences. I've never really settled down into one art. I like to be nomadic with my art.

I suppose all writers worry about the well running dry.

In today's society, the forces against you are heavy against you. The whole goal is to get knowledge of yourself, but people are so far from themselves that they don't believe themselves.

Then you have people coming up like Malcolm Bradbury, a relatively young writer who deals with the academic scene and deals with it, I think, brilliantly.