“He didn't want to please his readers. He wanted to stretch them until they twanged.”

“Beauty, extreme yet ambiguously available; this very roughly, was what Nicola's entrance to the Black Cross had said to Keith. But he didn't know the nature -- he didn't know the brand -- of the availability.”

“...I think one shouldn't pussyfoot, and just say that you write the stuff that you would like to read. So you write for yourself, no doubt about that. But I do have a sort of romantic idea of someone in their twenties, of a certain bent, and when they pick up a book by me, they think--as I have done on several occasions--'Ah, here is one for me. Here is a writer who I'll have to read all of, because they're speaking directly to me, and they're writing what I want to read.' And sometimes you're doing the signing queue and a reader comes past and you sign the book, and there's a little exchange of the eyes, where you think, 'Ah, that's one of them.' So there is that ideal reader. And it's someone who's discovering literature and homes in on you. I'm aware of such readers.”

“Richard's bookshelves weren't alphabetized. He never had time to alphabetize them. He was always too busy- looking for books he couldn't find.”

“I gestured at my litre of fizzy red wine. “Want a drop of this?” I asked him.No thanks. I try not to drink at lunchtime.”So do I. But I never quite make it.”I feel like shit all day if I drink at lunchtime.”Me too. But I feel like shit all lunchtime if I don’t.”Yes, well it all comes down to choices, doesn’t it?” he said. “It’s the same in the evenings. Do you want to feel good at night or do you want to feel good in the morning? It’s the same with life. Do you want to feel good young or do you want to feel good old? One or the other, not both.”Isn’t it a tragedy?”

“Although he liked nearly everything else about himself, Keith hated his redeeming features. In his view they constituted his only major shortcoming -his one tragic flaw.”

“Once, as he inhaled with his customary vehemence, I had a thought that made my armpits come alive.”