Traditions are the guideposts driven deep in our subconscious minds. The most powerful ones are those we can't even describe and aren't even aware of.

Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers.

I have never been especially impressed by the heroics of people convinced they are about to change the world. I am more awed by those who struggle to make one small difference.

Most people do not consider dawn to be an attractive experience - unless they are still up.

Maybe this year, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives not looking for flaws, but looking for potential.

The central struggle of parenthood is to let our hopes for our children outweigh our fears.

I regard this novel as a work without redeeming social value, unless it can be recycled as a cardboard box.

What he labels sexual, she labels harassment.

Today, much of journalism and politics are in a kind of collusion to oversimplify and personalize issues. No room for ambivalence. Plenty of room for the personal attack.

Ultimately, time is all you have and the idea isn't to save it, but to savour it.

Our 'mistakes' become our crucial parts, sometimes our best parts, of the lives we have made.

Don't be your own devil.

Remove the mask. Let me love the darkness you hide underneath.

Home was merely a dull ache in the back of his memory. A tiredness in his eyes.

The notion of "business as usual" is a harmful myth.

Contentment can only happen as we increase desire, let it run itself out towar its fulfilment, and carry us along with it.

I'm not sure it pays to do anything remotely public in Britain. It's such a spiteful society. People seem to enjoy making your life hard for the sake of it.

The more you know, the more you know you don't know and the more you know that you don't know.

Everything is so finite but that’s what makes our time and specific moments so important.

You know I have loved him always. But we are very poor. Who, being loved, is poor? Oh, no one. I hate my riches. They are a burden.

We may never be able to pay directly for the gifts of true friendship - but pay we must, even though we make our payment to someone who owes us nothing, in some other place and at some other time.