"Africa, have you seen it? No? Then is it truly there?...And the past, did it happen? And the future, will it come? Believe in your own eyes and you'… - Salman Rushdie

When we stop believing in gods we can start believing in their stories, I retort. There are of course no such things as miracles, but if there were and so tomorrow we woke up to find no more believers on earth, no more devout Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, why then, sure the beauty of the stories would be a thing we could focus on because they wouldn't be dangerous any more, they would become capable of compelling the only belief that leads to truth, that is, the willing, disbelieving of the reader in a well-told tale.

In death do triumph and failure humbly meet. We learn far less from victory than from defeat.

I have to say it has been alarming to see publishers looking to bowdlerise the work of such people as Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming [...] The idea that James Bond could be made politically correct is almost comical. I think that has to be resisted. Books have to come to us from their time and be of their time, and if that's difficult to take, don’t read them. Read another book, but don't try and remake yesterday's work in the light of today's attitudes.