“Having me in the dining-room was almost the equivalent of having a Raeburn on the walls; I was classy, I was heavily varnished, and I offended nobody.”

“He stepped away from me to talk, and I leaned heavily against the wall beside his door. Clearly, I was not meant to have sex. This was God telling me that I was meant to be a nun. Get thee to a nunnery, and all that crap. I was so delirious I was confusing God and Shakespeare.”

“I thought about having a proper room,breathing life into it, and nobody minding.”

“I’ll wipe a booger on your living room wall, not only to show I was there, but also to say thanks for having me over.”

“Nobody has the right to not be offended. That right doesn't exist in any declaration I have ever read. If you are offended it is your problem, and frankly lots of things offend lots of people.I can walk into a bookshop and point out a number of books that I find very unattractive in what they say. But it doesn't occur to me to burn the bookshop down. If you don't like a book, read another book. If you start reading a book and you decide you don't like it, nobody is telling you to finish it. To read a 600-page novel and then say that it has deeply offended you: well, you have done a lot of work to be offended.”

“Nobody listens anymore. I can't talk to the walls because they're yelling at me, I can't talk to my wife; she listens to the walls. I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough it'll make sense. And I want you to teach me to understand what I read.”