“ I wouldn't dream of watching motor racing, cycling, or golf - which aren't truly sports anyway. Howard Jacobson
“ I have a son, but I've never had a daughter. I have a sister, and my sister had a fairly tempestuous relationship with my dad when she was young, and that was gripping and sometimes upsetting. Howard Jacobson
“ You can't have a church town without belief and you can't have belief without intolerance. Howard Jacobson
“ Not everyone is fortunate enough to earn their living playing. But what draws people to art and artists is a desire to enjoy the propinquity of play. For it is the very freedom of the imagination. And… Howard Jacobson
“ Whoever has once been truly unsettled by a work of the imagination will never give loyalty to a single idea, belief system, religious faith or party. Howard Jacobson
“ Of my old tendency to overdo the dedication and deface the title page with florid compliments and obscure quotes which the recipient cannot read, I will say only that I learnt my lesson when I had to… Howard Jacobson
“ I've always liked older women. One sad thing about being my age is that there are no older women. I used to amuse my mother's friends even at five or six with witty turns of phrase. Somehow, I just kn… Howard Jacobson
“ There's a simple arithmetical logic at work. Build more unaffordable and not always architecturally sympathetic apartments, watch the rents rise, the tarts leave, the small shops, production offices a… Howard Jacobson
“ Looking back, I realise it wasn't only gym I dreaded at school. Every class was a torment. It wasn't knowledge I objected to but instruction. Why couldn't they just tell us what books to read and leav… Howard Jacobson
“ Economics is not a science; it is a quasi-religion: part superstition, part mystique, part sentimentality. Bankers dream like other men, the only difference being that when their dreams turn to nightm… Howard Jacobson
“ The 'Reader's Digest' used to run a feature called 'It Pays to Increase Your Word Power.' The new wisdom - post-Trump and Brexit - is that it doesn't. Howard Jacobson
“ Things go bad after a divorce and often stay that way. It is rare for the parties to return placidly to a time before they met. A bitterness lingers on. Those who call this our Independence Day, fanta… Howard Jacobson
“ Shake any institution of higher learning, and a dozen boycotters will fall out of it. Howard Jacobson
“ For me a Writing Day was an occasion for self-reproach and panic, a time to lament the passing of the years, stare out of windows and remember that even those famous late starters Joseph Conrad and Ge… Howard Jacobson
“ Trawl through the world of blogs and tweets, and you will find readers complaining when they stumble upon a word they don't recognise, an attitude that doesn't accord with their own, a passage of thou… Howard Jacobson
“ People often think that you have a sense of humor because you think that life is funny. Life isn't funny at all. It's appalling and tragic. Howard Jacobson
“ There is a shop close to where I live, outside which, on certain nights of the month - I've no idea if the transit of the moon determines precisely when - fans of designer skateboards queue from early… Howard Jacobson
“ So the mathematician and the artist are companioned in the same dark, and do obeisance to the same gods. Howard Jacobson
“ An artist owed a duty to nothing except his own irresponsibility. It was OK for an artist to frolic in the water, no matter how bloody the waves or how high the tide rose. An ethicist had an obligatio… Howard Jacobson
“ A life was owned by the person who lived it, he believed. What happened didn't always happen because you wanted it to, but what you made of it was your responsibility. Howard Jacobson
