Between the fear that something would happen and the hope that still it wouldn't there is much more space than one thinks. On that narrow hard bare and dark space a lot of us spend their lives.

In fact I'd just like to own something. Everyone thinks I'm glamorous rich and famous but all I've got is some recording equipment and a battered old BMW.

I'd love to live in Ireland but I'd like to live as me not what someone thinks I am. People don't understand - I lived there before I was famous.

No doubt the White House thinks the American people know Obama's story. But since the Inauguration we've seen only the president's present: his perfect family his Ivy League elegance his effortless mastery of complex issues. We never see him sweat. And we forget that he ever had to struggle.

I have written too much history to have faith in it and if anyone thinks I'm wrong I am inclined to agree with him.

America thinks of itself as a meritocracy so people have more respect for success and more contempt for failure.

Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes.

No man can be a failure if he thinks he's a success If he thinks he is a winner then he is.

For me titles are either a natural two-second experience or stressful enough to give you an ulcer. If they don't pop out perfect on the first try they can be really hard to repair. Or worse if the author thinks they pop out perfect but the publishing house does not agree it's difficult to shift gears. And then? Then you go insane.

Everybody thinks that equality comes from identifying people and that's not where equality comes from.