Truth is always duller than fiction.

Sins become more subtle as you grow older: you commit sins of despair rather than of lust.

Good novels are not written, they are rewritten. Great novels are diamonds mined from layered rewrites.

When I'm on the road, I'll break my exercise into a cardio session and a weights session.

the people are the biggest horror show on earth, have been for centuries.

It never hurts a fool to appear before an audience, for his capacity is not a capacity for feeling.

School used to be an escape. Now it's just another place with too much pressure, too much confrontation, & so not enough joy.

Pyp had stabbed a turnip with his knife. "The night is dark and full of turnips," he announced in a solemn voice. "Let us all pray for venison, my children, with some onions and a bit of tasty gravy.

You look at a guy who's being brave. He's afraid, or he wouldn't be brave. If he isn't afraid, he's stupid.

Everybody wants to solve everybody's problems.

If you want to dispossess a people, the simplest way to do it is to tell their story and to start with 'secondly'.

It is the youth who sees a great opportunity hidden in just these simple services, who sees a very uncommon situation, a humble position, who gets on in the world.

One day I will have to forgive life for ending, I tell myself. I will have to learn how to let life be life with its unbearable finality ... just be what it is.