Writer

I've got nothing very original to say myself.

My kind publishers, Toby Mundy and Margaret Stead of Atlantic Books, have commissioned me to write the life of Queen Victoria.

People become dons because they are incapable of doing anything else in life.

IQ in general has improved since tests first began. Psychologists think that this is because modern life becomes ever more complicated.

Anti-Semitism is extremely common.

Truth comes to us mediated by human love.

A busybody's work is never done.

On the rare occasions when I spend a night in Oxford, the keeping of the hours by the clock towers in New College, and Merton, and the great booming of Tom tolling 101 times at 9 pm at Christ Church are inextricably interwoven with memories and regrets and lost joys. The sound almost sends me mad, so intense are the feelings it evokes.

I suppose if I'd got a brilliant first and done research I might still be a don today, but I hope not. People become dons because they are incapable of doing anything else in life.

I very much dislike the intolerance and moralism of many Christians, and feel more sympathy with Honest Doubters than with them.

The fact that logic cannot satisfy us awakens an almost insatiable hunger for the irrational.

The United States is the ultimate land of optimistic promise, but it also gave birth to quintessentially pessimistic tragedy: 'Moby-Dick.'

Saya percaya runtuhnya House of Windsor terkait dengan runtuhnya Gereja Inggris.

In Memoriam 'telah menjadi pendamping saya selama masa dewasa saya.

Nearly all monster stories depend for their success on Jack killing the Giant, Beowulf or St. George slaying the Dragon, Harry Potter triumphing over the basilisk. That is their inner grammar, and the whole shape of the story leads towards it.

I might be deceiving myself but I do not think that I do have an inordinate fear of death.

I think I became a Catholic to annoy my father.

If only Queen Elizabeth II had the intellectual, political and linguistic skills of Queen Elizabeth I, many people would support giving her some of the powers of an elected president.

I am shy to admit that I have followed the advice given all those years ago by a wise archbishop to a bewildered young man: that moments of unbelief 'don't matter,' that if you return to a practice of the faith, faith will return.

If you know somebody is going to be awfully annoyed by something you write, that's obviously very satisfying, and if they howl with rage or cry, that's honey.