The ancillary aspect of every British city now is the council estate.

That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing. It is my way of judging what I am doing - which is never an easy thing to do.

The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.

One isn’t born one’s self. One is born with a mass of expectations, a mass of other people’s ideas – and you have to work through it all.

Most people are not really free. They are confined by the niche in the world that they carve out for themselves. They limit themselves to fewer possibilities by the narrowness of their vision.

It is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That's where the mischief starts. That's where everything starts unravelling.

The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.

Home is, I suppose just a child's idea. A house at night, and a lamp in the house. A place to feel safe.

One always writes comedy at the moment of deepest hysteria.

The world is always in movement.

All the details of the life and the quirks and the friendships can be laid out for us, but the mystery of the writing will remain. No amount of documentation, however fascinating, can take us there.

Faith declares what the senses do not see but not the contrary of what they see.

I've been running like this since I was seven.

On a recent survey, 80 percent of golfers admitted cheating. The other 20 percent lied.

Masterpieces are only lucky attempts.

We need to renegotiate our contract with nature. Ecology is a unifying force that can diminish intolerance and expand our empathy towards others - both human and animal.

Every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion to what is required.

After a great game or a great practice, man, I feel on top of the world.

I'll get kicked around for saying it, but men and women are just different. They're not equal. The same way that you and I are not equal.

Quarrels in France strengthen a love affair, in America they end it.

Those smutty books sell because women wish their husbands had half the balls the men in those books do.