“The Metropolitan Museum of Art claims to be the largest in the western hemisphere. It's right, but I'm not too sure about the arts bit. Don't misunderstand me. It's got tons of genuine art. It's also got tons of stuff that is hard to classify. I can't come to grips with a massive cube with a grandiose title. I allow that it's art, but not my sort. I need the big stone block to tell me something about the bloke whose name's on the caption, and it doesn't. That off my chest, I admit that any place with 3.3 million works of art truly is a wonder.”

“The exhibition gobsmacked me. I'm not ashamed to admit it. Here was quite a small building, not many people about, getting little attention. And inside they'd pulled together a staggering display of Regency furniture. I've seen most of the stuff that matters. I simply stood there, gaping.”

“The Theory of Sexual Understanding is mine. I created it. It works between a man and a woman. It's this: Everything's up to her.”

“Women are odd. I really mean that. A woman doesn't know the effect she has on a man. Any woman affects every man with instant global tonnage every single time. But women all go about teaching each other it isn't true. God knows why. They reach for doubt, where we blokes go for hope. This accounts for much of their behavior.”

“People think I am being modest when I tell them I know absolutely nothing about art. But if they show me a piece of student work, I won't have the slightest idea whether it's art or even "good". What I do know is whether such things hang or stand in the houses of the rich - or in the museums where the rich allow their treasures to be seen. And when people understand this, they'll instantly agree with what I said in the first place, that I know absolutely nothing about art.”

“Artists don't talk about art. Artists talk about work. If I have anything to say to young writers, it's stop thinking of writing as art. Think of it as work.”

“It's not art for art's sake, it's art for my sake. ”