“Books don't offer real escape, but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw.”

“Mother used to say escape is never further than the nearest book. Well, Mumsy, no, not really. Your beloved large-print sagas of rags, riches, and heartbreak were no camouflage against the miseries trained on you by the tennis ball launcher of life, were they? But, yes, Mum, there again, you have a point. Books don’t offer real escape, but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw.”

“escape is never further than the nearest book”

“But,' I ducked the subject, 'don't heaps of artists use pseudonyms?' 'Who?' 'Um . . .' Only Cliff Richard and Sid Vicious came to mind.”

“How could I know a famished heart will eat its mind? Can kill its body?”

“A book you finish reading is not the same book it was before you read it.”

“As many truths as men. Occasionally, I glimpse a truer Truth, hiding in imperfect simulacrums of itself, but as I approach, it bestirs itself & moves deeper into the thorny swamp of dissent.”