The aging process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over, and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn't ready to appear ridiculous.

The freedom to make a fortune on the stock exchange has been made to sound more alluring than freedom of speech.

There are lots of similarities between being a writer and a lawyer: to tell a story to a jury, hold their attention, make them laugh, make them like you. But what makes being a barrister less satisfying than being a writer is, finally, that it's about what someone else wants you to say.

My father was the doyen of the divorce barristers. He was an extremely erudite and very famous divorce barrister. So that, when I was a little boy in the nursery, instead of a story like 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,' I used to get 'The Duchess and the Seven Correspondents.'

I think what I was unconsciously expressing in 'Black Rainbow' was a very abstract and metaphorical grief, in the way I had suppressed my grief about my mother dying. In retrospect I realise I started writing 'Mandy' as a sort of antidote to that, to sort of express those emotions, to purge that grief.

The government is tottering. We must deal it the death blow an any cost. To delay action is the same as death.

Just think: in all the clean, beautiful reaches of the solar system, our planet alone is a blot; our planet alone has death.

At my funeral, if one said, 'Nick was a generous person,' trust me I won't be doing cartwheels in my coffin. Recognition from people is never and never will be a goal. Some people strive for that respect or honor. Living a life to just reach for the position and status is vanity and sin.