We write to know we are not alone

We read to know that we are not alone.

Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.

Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn fast.

God creates us free, free to be selfish, but He adds a mechanism that will penetrate our selfishness and wake us up to the presence of others in this world, and that mechanism is called suffering.

I am as I am. The world is as it is. Whether I am content with that has very little to do with it.

I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time- waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God- it changes me.

My study is a converted garage which is largely lined with bookshelves and cardboard boxes filled with manuscripts of my film scripts, plays and books.

The English seem to think drinking wine is like committing adultery, something you do rarely and abroad.

A well-off plastic surgeon can suffer just as much as an Irish lad who has been abused or whatever.

Everyone deserves to be the hero of a novel.

You are capable of fulfilling all your dreams.

By passing your GCSEs you prove that you’re not an idiot… But by passing your A levels you prove that you’re smart

Will do Satan's work for food.

I was never hurt by what anybody said about my clothes, because I dress to please myself. If somebody doesn’t like what I’m wearing, it’s their problem, not mine

In middle age I've begun to embrace stress reducing behaviors. Just in doing yoga, for example, my health has improved dramatically.

I don't have so many friends I can afford to drop one just because he tried to kill me.

To get all that life wants for you, apply what I call the Boomerang Effect: Give out what you most want to see come back.

To live with gratitude ever in our hearts is to touch heaven.

I was a tomboy and didn't pay too much attention to my clothes.