Quotes

There is no doubt that, since 1977 and the launch of Apple II - the first computer it produced for the mass market - many things which used to be done on paper, or on the telephone, have been done easier and faster on a screen.

I wanted passionately to be a priest.

The death of any man aged 56 is very sad for his widow and family. And no one would deny that Steve Jobs was a brilliant and highly innovative technician, with great business flair and marketing ability.

If you know somebody is going to be awfully annoyed by something you write, that's obviously very satisfying, and if they howl with rage or cry, that's honey.

The United States is the ultimate land of optimistic promise, but it also gave birth to quintessentially pessimistic tragedy: 'Moby-Dick.'

If you read about Mussolini or Stalin or some of these other great monsters of history, they were at it all the time, that they were getting up in the morning very early. They were physically very active. They didn't eat lunch.

'In Memoriam' has been my companion for all my grownup life.

Everyone writes in Tolstoy's shadow, whether one feels oneself to be Tolstoyan or not.

I might be deceiving myself but I do not think that I do have an inordinate fear of death.

The approach of death certainly concentrates the mind.

Since Einstein developed his theory of relativity, and Rutherford and Bohr revolutionised physics, our picture of the world has radically changed.

I do not find it easy to articulate thoughts about religion. I remain the sort of person who turns off 'Thought for the Day' when it comes on the radio.

I don't write books inadvertently.

Fear of death has never played a large part in my consciousness - perhaps unimaginative of me.

People become dons because they are incapable of doing anything else in life.

Personally, I think universities are finished. So much rubbish gets taught.

It is remarkable how easily children and grown-ups adapt to living in a dictatorship organised by lunatics.

The latest research has revealed that women have a higher IQ than men.

Of all liars the most arrogant are biographers: those who would have us believe, having surveyed a few boxes full of letters, diaries, bank statements and photographs, that they can play at the recording angel and tell the whole truth about another human life.

I've got nothing very original to say myself.

It would no doubt be very sentimental to argue - but I would argue it nevertheless - that the peculiar combination of joy and sadness in bell music - both of clock chimes, and of change-ringing - is very typical of England. It is of a piece with the irony in which English people habitually address one another.

I think I became a Catholic to annoy my father.

Anti-Semitism is extremely common.

Like many people in Britain, I have an affectionate respect for the Queen, and am surprised that I should be having such republican thoughts.

I very much dislike the intolerance and moralism of many Christians, and feel more sympathy with Honest Doubters than with them.