Johnny Rich quotes:

Anyone can be a story. Everyone is.

Inhumanity is part of humanity as much as suffering is a part of stories. Cruelty is written in the human script.

Those who perpetrate stories must act cruelly.

Doing nothing was as honourable as any available course of action. Think of Hamlet, think of Job, think of Jesus before Pilate.

The future is certain. It is just not known.

So, my sweet, did it put the fun into funeral?

The only simple truth is that there is nothing simple in this complex universe. Everything relates. Everything connects

I guarantee it will change your life, but only because everything does, however small.

Being gay is not just what I do, but who I am. It is part of how I choose to live my life even if I never chose.

We stand in black to watch this rite performed, the body in the box, the box in the hole, the dirt on the box.

Silent is an anagram of listen.

Actors," he says, "should only be superficial on the surface.

To reread a book is to read a different book. The reader is different. The meaning is different.

Is the writer cruel that makes his characters suffer only to bring them to triumph or tragedy in the end?

Is it murder to kill a man if the man never existed? To the man it is.

Who can say they saw a whole play or read a whole book? Each has their own experience, their own play, their own book

So who is cruel? You, cruel reader, you are.

Is cruelty still cruel if it is necessary? Is cruelty still cruel if it is part of a lie?

A thrilling story can be dull if told badly, but even the most mundane event can be elevated into a tale of epic scale by a good storyteller.

It is a matter of mere coincidence that there is often a real individual who corresponds with a celebrity, signifies them.

Good writing is more about graft and craft than inspiration and aspiration.

All life is preoccupied with death. Death is the only certain future. Yet in the face of reason, everyone holds out hope for the highly improbable.

Nothing is over our heads if we hold them high enough.

There is a distinction between a relationship which has a routine and a relationship which becomes routine

He did it because he could not help himself, which explains everything and nothing

Time passes. I drift in and out. As if I cease to be, until I remember to exist again.

The bacteria of resentment bred: distance turned to distrust; distrust turned to bitterness; bitterness to hate, which is, after all, a kind of grievous love

Like all fiction, my lies are just my efforts to be truer than the truth.

As thoroughly as mankind has killed God, the reader has despatched the author.

I know everything must be a lie, but I believe it anyway.

Stories are just lies made to look like truth.

To talk of probability is to suggest that events might happen differently from the way they do, whereas events themselves will unfold according to an inevitable path.

I feel underslept but overjoyed. Nothing feels so good as this.

You inherit your environment just as much as your genes.

This pain is comfort. It is the solace of physicality, like a touch.

He thought of hanging himself, to pass the time.

To be mad is worse than not to be if this is what it is.

A novel must be judged on its merits, not on how hard the journey was to write it.