“And if they're fictional, it is entirely acceptable to cheat on fictional men with other fictional men.”

“I was determined that in fiction anyway two men should fall in love and remain in it for the ever and ever that fiction allows.”

“Fiction is to grown men what play is to the child.”

“we accept fictions as fictions, as things that might be true in their world, if not quite in ours.”

“Vanity's contribution to Fiction in general was an abundance of cheap labour and the occasional blockbuster, which was accepted into Fiction with an apologetic 'gosh, don't know how that happened'.”

“Lots of women read fiction. Most men don't. Women read fiction written by women and by men. Most men don't. If a man opens a novel,. he likes to have a masculine name on the cover; it's reassuring somehow. You never know what might happen to that external genitalia if you immerse yourself in imaginary doings concocted by someone with the goods on the inside.”