I have nothing else in the works. I'm spending a lot of time learning Chinese and a lot of time being with my boy who is a teenager now and wants a lot of my attention.

I just want to go on walking, you know? I like to continue my work of movies and just go on with the capacity and opportunity to do exactly what I want. To stay free.

Unfortunately I have too many projects going. Two of them, fortunately, are already in the editors’ hands. One is this book on the birds of Northern Melanesia I’m doing with Jared Diamond, and that deals with speciation and particular ecology, biogeographic dispersal and all the other questions.

Oh God, there are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready. ... And I don't know whether I'll do another book or not. I might. It doesn't matter. I'm a happy old man. But I will cry my way all the way to the grave.

Learning to give up on perfection may be just about the most romantic move any of us could make.

I came from a family where books were highly valued, and that set me on the path of reading. Also, my family got out there and did stuff, and so I grew up feeling that you could change things and get things done if you worked hard.

I believed that the real challenge in love was finding ‘the right one’. I now realise that it’s not a case of finding the right one, so much as learning to love rightly.

The summer just after finishing How Proust Can Change Your Life.

To two ex-girlfriends, for my cowardice.

I'd grow more hair and try to be less mortal.