“The consuming desire of most human beings is deliberately to plant their whole life in the hands of some other person. I would describe this method of searching for happiness as immature. Development of character consists solely in moving toward self-sufficiency.”

Well, it has done terrifying things. Religious ideas are inflammatory in a way that I find difficult to understand. There are very few wars over the theory of relativity. Very few heated arguments, for that matter. Whereas, in Northern Ireland, they are killing one another over religion.

Keeping up with the Joneses was a full-time job with my mother and father. It was not until many years later when I lived alone that I realized how much cheaper it was to drag the Joneses down to my level.

In an expanding universe, time is on the side of the outcast. Those who once inhabited the suburbs of human contempt find that without changing their address they eventually live in the metropolis.

Believe in fate, but lean forward where fate can see you.

I’m happy to say she was laughing while she said it, but she meant it. I’ve never learned to be a candle burning in an empty room. So I go on the screen, and I say whatever I’m told to say.

For flavor, instant sex will never supersede the stuff you have to peel and cook.

The trouble with children is that they’re not returnable.

I asked a girl who came from America to England, when I was only English, and she admitted she had been to a drama school. And I said, “What did they teach you?” And she said, “They taught me to be a candle burning in an empty room.”

The measure of woman’s distaste for any part of her life lies not in the loudness of her lamentations (these are only an attempt to buy a martyr’s crown at a reduced price) but in her persistent pursuit of that occupation of which she never ceases to complain.

Fashion is what you adopt when you don’t know who you are.

You must stop this interview now as I have come to end of my personality.

Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne.

There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn’t get any worse.

The war between the sexes is the only one in which both sides regularly sleep with the enemy.

There are three reasons for becoming a writer: the first is that you need the money; the second that you have something to say that you think the world should know; the third is that you can’t think what to do with the long winter evenings.

Nothing shortens a journey so pleasantly as an account of misfortunes at which the hearer is permitted to laugh.

Whereas the graphic novel is now being held up as something to aspire to and as something that’s respectable for adults to read.

Being just yourself means you’re unselfconscious in that moment.

The concept of being loyal to your friends, to the point where you’d even die for them, is a great subject.

You have to believe in yourself and be strong.

Human beings are pattern-seeking animals. It’s part of our DNA. That’s why conspiracy theories and gods are so popular: we always look for the wider, bigger explanations for things.

I thrive on being able to make a way out of no way.

No more excuses about being young.

I think it’s important that we run that tension between the way things are.