Convictions are not merely beliefs we hold; they are those beliefs that hold us in their grip.
People never remeber happiness with the care that they lavish on preserving every detail of their suffering.
Irony is the hardest addiction of all. Forget heroin. Just try giving up irony, the deep-down need to mean two things at once, to be in two places at once, not to be there for the catastrophe of a fixed meaning.
No pain is too small if it hurts, but any pain is too big if it's cherished.
Surely: the adverb of a man without an argument.
Looking after children can be a subtle way of giving up. . . They become the whole ones, the well ones, the postponement of happiness, the ones who won't drink too much, give up, get divorced, become mentally ill. The part of oneself that's fighting against decay and depression is transferred to guarding them from decay and depression. In the meantime one decays and gets depressed.
It seems people spend the majority of their lives believing they're dying, with the only consolation being that at one point they get to be right.
My life at the moment is a bit like my wardrobe. Organised chaos.
We have to look at the substance of something rather than the shadow.
I had thought for years, probably 30 or 40 years, that it would be a lot of fun to try my hand at a classic English mystery novel. . . I love that form very much because the reader is so familiar with all of the types of characters that are in there that they already identify with the book.
Books are the food of youth, the delight of old age; the ornament of prosperity, the refuge and comfort of adversity; a delight at home, and no hindrance abroad; companions by night, in traveling, in the country.