We are supposed to be on the side of goodness in the sense that we need it, not that we are it.

Goblins burrowed in the earth, elves sang songs in the trees: Those were the obvious wonders of reading, but behind them lay the fundamental marvel that, in stories, words could command things to be.

You never came out the way you came in.

God doesn't want your careful virtue, He wants your reckless generosity.

The emotions that sustain religious belief are all, in fact, deeply ordinary and deeply recognisable to anybody who has ever made their way across the common ground of human experience as an adult.

Emotions can certainly be misleading: they can fool you into believing stuff that is definitely, demonstrably untrue.

I can always tell when you're reading somewhere in the house,' my mother used to say. 'There's a special silence, a reading silence.

What follows is more about books than it is about me, but nonetheless it is my inward autobiography, for the words we take into ourselves help to shape us.

When I'm tired and therefore indecisive, it can take half an hour to choose the book I am going to have with me while I brush my teeth.

Self-awareness is not the same thing as self-approval, any more than imagination is the same thing as day-dreaming.

Reality is a cliché from which we escape by metaphor.

[Cats] are blissfully unaware that they have only a finite time in which to finish their ‘to do’ list.

Mirrors at the gym only serve to remind me that I'm less of a man than I'd like to be.

Survival is both an exalted privilege and a painful burden.

Managing a league club is like making love to a mermaid... you should always be aiming for a top half finish

I'm definitely looking to put together a full season. I know what I'm capable of doing. I want to be the kind of player my teammates can depend on.

True art is made noble and religious by the mind producing it.

Specialization is for insects... The race of man? He's a whole other creature.

It is time for us all to stand and cheer for the doer, the achiever - the one who recognizes the challenges and does something about it.