The greatest horrors of our world are committed by people who are totally sincere.

There is always time for failure

To escape jury duty in England, wear a bowler hat and carry a copy of the Daily telegraph.

The shelf life of the modern hardback writer is somewhere between the milk and the yoghurt.

No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean finger nails.

All the flower children were as alike as a congress of accountants and about as interesting.

Never believe a rumour until you hear it officially denied.

We don't know much about the human conscience, except that it is soluble in alcohol.

The secret of good health and happiness is to have rather small illnesses throughout your life which you can rely on to stop you doing anything you don't want to do.

Hell must be a place where you are only allowed to read what you agree with.

I suppose that writers should, in a way, feel flattered by the censorship laws. They show a primitive fear and dread at the fearful magic of print.

...we can love someone without understanding that person.

After reading a book, you become someone else: Now you are not you, but you plus the book!

I break away from all conventions that do not lead to my earthly success and happiness.

The real problem has far less to do with what is really out there than it does with our resistance to finding out what is really out there.

Not to be bound by rules, but to be creating one's own rules-this is the kind of life which Zen is trying to have us live.

There is a serious and resolute egotism that makes a man interesting to his friends and formidable to his opponents.

I like to avoid concessions to faint-heartedness. One can never tell where that road may lead one; one gives way first in words, and then little by little in substance too.

I confess to being a frustrated musician.

I detest those who deceive me.

My aesthetic is probably closer to a 15-year-old's than my dad's, but I get his conviction.