“You know that bad people can make great art, don’t you?’Said Annie.‘Yes, of course. Some of the people whose art I admire the most are assholes.’‘Dickens wasn’t nice to his wife.’‘Dickens didn’t make a memoir called I’m Nice to My Wife.”

“(from his random observations after reading David Copperfield by Charles Dickens)In the Old Curiosity Shop I discovered that in the character of Dick Swiveller, Dickens provided P.G. Wodehouse with pretty much the whole of his oeuvre. In David Copperfield, David's bosses Spenlow and Jorkins are what must be the earliest fictional representations of good cop/bad cop.”

“Where would David Copperfield be if Dickens had gone to writing classes? Probably about seventy minor characters short, is where. (Did you know that Dickens is estimated to have invented thirteen thousand characters? Thirteen thousand! The population of a small town!)”

“One thing about great art: it made you love people more, forgive them their petty transgressions. It worked in the way that religion was supposed to, if you thought about it.”

“You can see this everywhere you go: young middle-class people whose lives are beginning to disappoint them making to much noise in restaurants and clubs and winebars. 'Look at me! I'm not as boring as you think I am! I know how to have fun!' Tragic. I'm glad I learned to stay home and sulk.”

“Tuesday night I reorganized my record collection. I often do this at periods of emotional stress. There are some people who would find this a pretty dull way to spend an evening, but I'm not one of them. This is my life, and it's nice to be able to wade in it, immerse your arms in it, touch it.”

“I'd thought I'd live with my wife, but I couldn't find one.”