One does not remember the winners. One remains haunted by the losers.

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.

Nothing great comes to pass in life without perseverance.

The identification of fantasy is always an attempt to avoid one's own suffering: the identification of art is the sharing in the suffering of another.

Proper society did not think about MAKING money, only about spending it.

The greatest risk is not taking any.

I will burn, but this is a mere incident. We shall continue our discussion in eternity.

Amongst all other vices there is none I hate more than cruelty, both by nature and judgment, as the extremest of all vices.

I do feel that movies and music do have the power to slightly influence a person's decision. I believe that if violence is not in a person, then the film is not going to encourage them.

Computer scientists stand on each other's feet.

Local and regional food systems are about opportunity.

I never regret my past... Only time I wasted was on the wrong people.