From my notebooks:

1. Being an adult means taking responsibility for the safety of yourself, your family, and if needs be, your entire race.
2. As we experience different emotions, so we also feel time pass at different rates.
3. There are two kinds of courage. There’s the kind you get from knowing that what you’re doing is right. And there’s the kind you get from knowing its hopeless and wrong, and just not giving a damn.
4. Over long enough timescales, everything flows like water, even rock.
5. Punctuality is simply good manners.
6. A blank piece of paper has almost limitless potential.
7. All suffering is caused by denial – denial of basic human rights; denial of food; of love; of loved ones; of security; of health; of shelter; of money; of peace; of clean water; of justice.
8. All out myths are attempts to address three fundamental questions: 1) Where did we come from? 2) How do we behave now we’re here? 3) Where are we going?
9. Writing a novel is like building a dry stone wall across a windswept moor, one stone at a time.
10. Sometimes it is good to yodel like a crazy monkey person.
11. The only thing more terrifying than beginning to write is not to write at all.
12. People who are cynical about absolutely everything are often very dull company.
13. Stress results when there is a disconnection between the person we are and the person we want to be.
14. If you want people to read what you write, write about people.
15. You will be remembered for your actions, not your inactions.
16. There are no joys purer or sorrows keener than those felt by a child.
17. Writing is a constant struggle between inspiration and housework.
18. Everything in the universe came from gas and dust, and to gas and dust it will return.
19. Children are fearless because they haven’t experienced consequences. As we age, we become more fearful.
20. When writing, you have to confront the possibility of failure. You have to push beyond your comfort zone.
21. Some people live their lives as a perpetual sigh; others as a joyful whoop.
22. Life is short, and books take a long time to write.
23. Often, when someone says they want to talk about politics, what they really mean is that they want to talk about themselves.
24. Some dreams leave you upon waking with an incalculable sense of loss.
25. Few things are as contemptible as wilful ignorance.
26. Just as you climb a mountain one step at a time, so you have to keep following one word with another if you want to write a book.
27. A society civilised enough to have free speech should also be civilised enough to know when to use restraint.
28. Sometimes editing is like sculpting: you have to painstakingly chip away what isn’t needed in order to find the shape of the piece.
29. Some people don’t work well under pressure; others can’t work without it.
30. Future shock is a by-product of age. The young do not suffer from it.

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