Mass society destroys the things it is told are its inheritance. It is rarely possible to see the Abbey without being surrounded by thousands of tourists from all over the world. Like St. Peter's at Rome, it has been turned into a sinister sort of railway terminal. The aisles are as crowded as the pavements of Oxford Street or the alleys of a large shop, imagination is jostled, awe dispersed, and the mind never at rest. All great things, in our time, can only be seen in fragments, by fragmentary people.

The peculiar foreign superstition that the English do not like love, the evidence being that they do not talk about it.

Life - how curious is that habit that makes us think it is not here, but elsewhere.

How extraordinary it is that one feels most guilt about the sins one is unable to commit.

Sundance is weird. The movies are weird - you actually have to think about them when you watch them.

My Mum was Jewish. Maybe I'm a really bad Jew because I'm always so excited to say that I am, but I don't live and breathe the religion.

We're ashamed of what we are. That's why we feel that we have to get rid of the values of our glorious history and run to learn from other, new nations. Don't …