Speaking of [Philip] Larkin, in his poem about the First World War he wrote something like, "Never such innocence, before or since, that turned itself to past without a word".

I grew up with tarot cards and the reading of tea leaves.

My favourite tea is lapsang souchong.

I'm more a dog person than a cat person.

I grew up in North Devon, by the sea, and feel a special affinity for the landscape there, despite a lack of actual ancestry.

I was born in the seventies, age of bad haircuts and grainy colour photos.

I've never been baptised.

[My muse] is, in fact, a woman of the world, and precisely because of this, hopes that a diversity of cultures will endure, and that one bland monoculture does not swamp everything.

If we do want to do that [ colonise space to survive, ], then vacuous materialism is not going to be enough for us.

If we do overcome linear time, I would hope this means dwelling more directly in the fertility of the imagination rather than denying it, as some aspects of Buddhism seem to.

Some Buddhists, however, never seem to get past the void, and I suppose I view this as a kind of Buddhist 'Old Testament' that I don't especially like.

My dad always used to encourage me to dress weird.

Children do not see themselves as shocking or surprising and do not want other people to do so.

Men sometimes think they hate flattery, but they hate only the manner of flattering.

There are a lot of limitations so you have to ultimately focus on what you think the most important storyline is.

I'm a normal human being. I don't have any desire to change my body as a result of having had two kids. That's a good thing, isn't it?

In meditation we research the field without time and space and activity, and yet produce a useful effect while conducting the research.

I am a good and interested mother - which has surprised me.

I come to YOU without ME, come to ME without YOU.

I live in too many cities.

Chess makes man wiser and clear-sighted.