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

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.

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.

Human beings love stories because they safely show us beginnings, middles and ends.

At liminality, at a transitional point between his last night dream and reality, he realizes he has made a big mistake and happiness is possible without death. (Coming back to himself.)

Every man is defined by his deeds.

Self-esteem does not come from surrounding yourself with people and things that seem to increase your value. Real self-esteem is an integration of an inner-value with things in the world around you.

Our goal in science is to discover universal laws of nature. That pursuit fills me with wonder.

I walked a thousand miles just to slip this skin.

We think our PS3 game is better than their Xbox game.

When I'm 80 years old, I don't know what I want to be remembered for.

Excrement can never be culturally elaborated to the extent that nutriment can.

There are no slow retroviruses, only slow retrovirologists.

My delusion outweighs my talent by far and it always will, because if it doesn't, then there's no point in living.