Money - by Martin Amis

What is this state, seeing the difference between good and bad and choosing bad – or consenting to bad, okaying bad?

My memory's in good shape, I think. It's just that my life is getting less memorable all the time.

I'd hoped that the attack had been random. In my state, you're always hoping things are random. You don't want things assuming any shape on you.

It's the same with life. Do you want to feel good young or do you want to feel good old? One or the other, not both.

Oh Christ, the exhaustion of not knowing anything. It's so tiring and hard on the nerves. It really takes it out of you, not knowing anything. You're given comedy and miss all the jokes. Every hour, you get weaker. Sometimes, as I sit alone in my flat in London and stare at the window, I think how dismal it is, how hard, how heavy, to watch the rain and not know why it falls.

‘Say,' I said (and here was my gimmick): ‘I had a swell dream about you the other night.' Normally, with this line, in my experience you get either coy withdrawal or outright panic, depending on the dame.

London is full of short stories walking round hand in hand.

You can kill time in a number of ways but it always depends on the kind of time you're fighting: some time is unkillable, immortal. Whenever I did anything I always wanted to be doing something else but when I started doing something else I found I didn't want to do that either.

Get them when they're crying. Close in when they're crying. They're weak and raw and they can't keep you out.