“A creative life cannot be sustained by approval any more than it can be destroyed by criticism.”

“A funny yet interesting read, Will Self knowa his stuff and must do a lot of deep research.”

“Regard yourself as a small corporation of one. Take yourself off on team-building exercises (long walks). Hold a Christmas party every year at which you stand in the corner of your writing room, sh...”

“Don't look back until you've written an entire draft, just begin each day from the last sentence you wrote the preceding day. This prevents those cringing feelings, and means that you have a substa...”

“The postgrad at least knew enough to know that he would never know enough, lying under the stars which hung from the inky sky like bunches of inconceivably heavy, lustrous grapes, dusted with the y...”

“For the rest, silence or good music, not much food, a lot of solitude, walks on the Heath, the time to think while others... well, often fall apart. Not so bad, not so bad at all. Being queer and s...”

“The more powerful the class, the more it claims not to exist.”

“The story of terrorism is written by the state and it is therefore highly instructive compared with terrorism, everything else must be acceptable, or in any case more rational and democratic.”

“The more he identifies with the dominant images of need, the less he understands his own life and his own desires. The spectacles estrangement from the acting subject is expressed by the fact that ...”

“No matter how long grave acts tarry in their conceal places, light always move in on them.”

“...If I were to feed strangers my information, they wouldn't have enough time to expose themselves to the world.”

“I haven't any language weak enough to depict the weakness of my spiritual life. If I weakened it enough it would cease to be language at all. As when you try to turn the gas-ring a little lower sti...”