“No matter what your profession – doctor, lawyer, architect, accountant – if you are an American, you better be good at the touchy-feely service stuff, because anything that can be digitized can be outsourced to either the smartest or the cheapest producer.”

“Anything you read can influence your work, so I try to read good stuff.”

“But then again, I was about as far from touchy-feely as you could get. Unless you’re fucking me, don’t put your hands on me.”

“Don’t romanticise your ‘vocation’. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no ‘writer’s lifestyle’. All that matters is what you leave on the page.”

“Everybody had to conform, find a mold to fit into. Doctor, lawyer, soldier -- itdidn't matter what it was. Once in the mold you had to push forward. Sussex was as helpless as thenext man. Either you managed to do something or you starved in the streets.”

“Because you make me better. You make me-you make me feel like I matter. Like my life matters. I feel like, with you, I can do anything in the world. That we can do anything in the world. And we will.”