My mind does not easily accept stately historical processions.

You can't state difference and also state equality. We have to state sameness to understand equality.

As far as I'm concerned, if you want to find out about the last day of WWII or the roots of the Indian Mutiny, get thee to a books catalogue.

The past is always tense, the future perfect.

Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.

Don’t romanticise your ‘vocation’. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no ‘writer’s lifestyle’. All that matters is what you leave on the page.

Time is how you spend your love.

I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.

Don't confuse honours with achievement.

Pulchritude--beauty where you would least suspect it, hidden in a word that looked like it should signify a belch or a skin infection.

You are human and fallible.

It’s okay to glance at the light of another. But when you stare too long, it will blind you from seeing your own.

Humor's an excellent way to make a point more palatable and/or relatable.

The main thing with triathlon is you've got to be as fit as you can. I train all year round.

Art editors and critics - people like me - have become a courtier class.

Life is not fair... Anyone who says it is, or even that it ought to be, is a fool or worse.

Your idea of fidelity is not having more than one man in bed at the same time.

If the Bible is God's word, and we believe it, let us handle it with reverence.

For me there is no difference between art and life.

There isn't any more that I can teach him.