Language is the net that holds thought trapped within a particular culture. But if one could only strike the ball with sufficient force, with perfect timing, it would perhaps break through the netting, continue on its course, never fall to earth, but go into orbit around the world.

I'm a bit of a deconstructionist myself. It's kind of exciting - the last intellectual thrill left. Like sawing through the branch you're sitting on.

That's the attraction of the conference circuit: it's a way of converting work into play, combining professionalism with tourism, and all at someone else's exp…

Looking around at the faces of his colleagues in the Senior Common Room he felt reassured: not a Lineament of Gratified Desire to be seen.

The 'sayings' of a community, its proverbs, are its characteristic comment upon life; they imply its history, suggest its attitude toward the world and its way…

I rhyme To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.

Thus I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence, which is a noble thing.