Marxists interpreted everything in terms of class; Freudians in terms of childhood; and feminists in terms of gender.

94 per cent of us think we do above-average work.

Day offers two equally necessary sacraments – the benediction of morning and the absolution of dusk. In the morning coffee blesses and in the evening wine absolves.

It may well be that an analysis of figures would reveal a law – the duration of a marriage is inversely proportional to the cost of the wedding. Or, to put it another way, any union celebrated with personalized toasting flutes is doomed.

It is not possible to be original by trying to be original – those who attempt this in the arts will be merely avant-garde. Originality is the product of an impulse to intense and overwhelming that it bursts the conventions and produces something new – again more by accident than design.

Desire for power is a kind of greed indulged by the unfulfilled.

Stupidity, selfishness and good health are the three prerequisites of happiness, though if stupidity is lacking the others are useless.

However, the serious seeker of detachment will have to embrace the Holy Trinity of Ss – Solitude, Stillness and Silence – and reject the new religion of Commotionism, which believes that the meaning of life is constant company, movement and noise.

All of a sudden there was a lot of static and it went blank.

But there is a compelling reason to develop a personal strategy for living. Rejecting issues, which often feels liberating, is actually enslavement. Those who do not produce their own solutions must be using someone else's. As Nietzsche warned 'he who cannot obey himself will be commanded'.