We had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.” Louis de Bernieres as quoted in Underland by Robert Macfarlane.

I used to have nightmare about having petrol poured over me, and being set on fire, and nowadays I have nightmares that I have wooden teeth and that they are continually falling out, as if I had an infinite number of them. It seems that everyone has their own inexplicable fear to have nightmares about. We need nightmares to keep ourselves entertained, and fend off the contentment that we all fear and abhor so much.

Remember that fear causes to happen the very things it fears. That’s why fear should be unknown to us.

Family law is institutionally anti-male. I’ve been lobbying MPs, and I’m not going to give up campaigning for equality until I get equality.

Love is a kind of dementia with very precise and oft-repeated clinical symptoms.

It’s stupid to claim that one human being is special, or picked out by God, when in fact there are hundreds of millions of human beings in the world, and God knows how many millions of people long dead who have been lost to history, all of whom were probably special to someone.

How strange that the world should change because of words, and words change because of the world.

The garden where you sit Has never a need of flowers, For you are the blossoms And only a fool or the blind Would fail to know it.

The trouble with fulfilling your ambitions is you think you will be transformed into some sort of archangel and you’re not. You still have to wash your socks.

Love itself is what is left over when being “in love” has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.