Yes, well I had all my serious illnesses in late middle age. And now I'm just stuck, I'm afraid.

It's very important to feel foreign. I was born in England, but when I'm being a writer, everyone in England is foreign to me.

I found people were telling stories to themselves without knowing it. It seemed to me that people were living a sort of small sermon that they believed in, but…

Now, practically all reviewers have academic aspirations. The people from the universities are used to a captive audience, but the literary journalist has to p…

Dyspepsy is the ruin of most things: empires, expeditions, and everything else.

'You are old, Father William.' the young man cried, 'The few locks which are left you are grey; You are hale, Father William-a hearty old man: Now tell me the …

It's amazing when you get to a certain age, and you talk about sleep in the same way you spoke about inebriates 20 or 25 years before. 'Man, I got eight hours …