“… that sour blend of loneliness and lust for recognition, shyness and extravagance, deep insecurity and self-intoxicated egomania, that drives poets and writers out of their rooms to seek each other out, to rub shoulders with one another, bully, joke, condescend, feel each other, lay a hand on a shoulder or an arm round a waist, to chat and argue with little nudges, to spy a little, sniff out what is cooking in other pots, flatter, disagree, collude, be right, take offence, apologise, make amends, avoid each other, and seek each other’s company again.”

“In our opposed forms of loneliness and self-recognition and recognition of the other, we touched each other often as we spoke; and on shore in explorations of the past, we strolled with our arms linked...”

“I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way--either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other's shoulder-blades, and be content.”

“What civilization is, is 6 billion people trying to make themselves happy by standing on each other's shoulders and kicking each other's teeth in. It's not a pleasant situation.”

“There must be transients in the bird world too, rumple-feathered outcasts that naturally seek out each other’s company in inferior and dying trees.”

“Sometimes it seems that the leaders of nations are little boys with chips on their shoulders, daring each other to knock them off.”