Quotes

The future is going to be boring. The suburbanisation of the planet will continue, and the suburbanisation of the soul will follow soon after.

In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom.

I believe in the power of the imagination to remake the world, to release the truth within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen.

[on turning down a CBE in 2003] There's all that bowing and scraping and mummery at the palace. It's the whole climate of deference to the monarch and everything else it represents. They just seem to perpetuate the image of Britain as too much pomp and not enough circumstance. It's a huge pantomime where tinsel takes the place of substance. A lot of these medals are orders of the British Empire, which is a bit ludicrous. The dreams of empire were only swept away relatively recently, in the 60s. Suddenly, we seem to have a prime minister who has delusions of a similar kind. It goes with the whole system of hereditary privilege and rank, which should be swept away. It uses snobbery and social self-consciousness to guarantee the loyalty of large numbers of citizens who should feel their loyalty is to fellow citizens and the nation as a whole. We are a deeply class-divided society.

[on the British honours system] [A] Ruritanian charade that helps to prop up our top-heavy monarchy... Thousands of medals are given out in the name of a non-existent empire. It makes us look a laughing stock and encourages deference to the crown. I think it is exploited by politicians and always has been.