“Come away with me, he said, we will live on a desert island. I said, I am a desert island. It was not what he had in mind.”

“Children ask me sometimes what book I'd take to a desert island, but I think I couldn't go to a desert island unless it had a library.”

“Bod said, 'I want to see life. I want to hold it in my hands. I want to leave a footprint on the sand of a desert island. I want to play football with people. I want,' he said, and then he paused and he thought. 'I want everything.”

“Not that I was incapable of friendship. 'Don't be shy', the teachers coaxed. I was not shy, only extremely choosy. And Denise shone like a diamond. If you had to ask me to define paradise, I would have said a desert island which Denise could visit, on a boat.”

“He washed up on a desert island, where he incurred the most remarkable series of mishaps that somehow kept turning out for the best. He had no time to keep a journal. He was never rescued.”

“Who would wave a flag to be rescued if they had a desert island of their own? That was the thing that spoilt Robinson Crusoe. In the end he came home. There never ought to be an end.”