“It seems to me the mark of a civilized society that certain privileges should be taken for granted such as education, health care and the safety to walk the streets.”

Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.

Books are not about passing the time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds.

A composite too are the neighbours, Pauline and Rufus, though I have made Rufus a publisher in remembrance of my neighbour, the late Colin Haycraft, the proprietor of Duckworth’s.

To begin with, it’s true, she read with trepidation and some unease.

And if it can be explained that it can be explained away.’ ‘But this is History. Distance yourselves.

I think the writer’s quite low down in the hierarchy really. But the fact that they took the piss out of Nicholas [Hynter] who, besides being the director, is also director of the National Theatre is, I’d have thought, slightly more risky.

Artists, celebrated for their humanity, they turn out to be scarcely human at all.

I don’t talk very well. With writing, you’ve time to get it right. Also I’ve found the more I talk the less I write, and if I didn’t write no one would want me to talk anyway.

However bad the weather, Dad never drove to church because Mam thought the sacrament might make him incapable on the return journey.

We have fish and chips, which W. and I fetch from the shop in Settle market-place.

[B]riefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point.

One recipe for happiness is to have to sense of entitlement.’ To this she added a star and noted at the bottom of the page: ‘This is not a lesson I have ever been in a position to learn.

Polly: Education with socialists, it’s like sex, all right as long as you don’t have to pay for it.

A photograph on every mantlepiece. And all this mourning has veiled the truth. It’s not so much lest we forget, as lest we remember.

But then books, as I’m sure you know, seldom prompt a course of action.

Cloisters, ancient libraries … I was confusing learning with the smell of cold stone.

It’s a life of sacrifice. There are rewards, but also a certain degree of sterility.

Drawing an object that has a certain amount of wear and tear or rust; or a tree that is damaged.

I think there’s no question that the barriers, the fences and in certain urban areas, the walls, have had an important effect in terms of increasing the manageability and the security of the border.

We live in a time where there’s an alienation factor. There’s a certain disconnection.

I certainly believe that what we perceive as humans is just the tip of the iceberg.

Certainly if someone looks at my life, they will see that I have surrendered my heart, my life to Jesus Christ.

To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.

I just try and learn to be a good husband and be a good father before I am a good rock star. That means saying no to certain things that go with the business.