In October 1920 I went to Leeds as Reader in English Language, with a free commission to develop the linguistic side of a large and growing School of English Studies, in which no regular provision had as yet been made for the linguistic specialist.

I’m a bookworm. I know with my physical appearance that I don’t look like the typical reader. I’m in Barnes & Noble all the time, and you can look at people that look like they are supposed to be in there. I am in there, pants sagging, hat backwards.

I don’t do Shakespeare. I don’t talk in that kind of broken English.

I would be a liar, a hypocrite, or a fool – and I’m not any of those – to say that I don’t write for the reader. I do. But for the reader who hears, who really will work at it, going behind what I seem to say. So I write for myself and that reader who will pay the dues.

Though I do manage to mumble around in about seven or eight languages, English remains the most beautiful of languages. It will do anything.

English is necessary as at present original works of science are in English. I believe that in two decades times original works of science will start coming out in our languages. Then we can move over like the Japanese.

I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I’ll go for the gross-out. I’m not proud.

It’s a nice reader, but there’s nothing on the iPad I look at and say, ‚Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.‘

I’ll tell you what I was like as a child. I was a good person. I was high-spirited but I was a big reader.

‚Good English‘ is whatever educated people talk; so that what is good in one place or time would not be so in another.

I think I’ve committed the one really bad English crime, which is I’ve risen above my station. I was supposed to be a pop star, and suddenly I’m claiming that I’m an artist of some kind.

I admire people who dare to take the language, English, and understand it and understand the melody.

Radio in England is nonexistent. It’s very bad English use of a media system, typically English use.

Research is creating new knowledge.

When you’re writing a novel, you don’t want the reader to come out of it voting yes or no to some question. Life is more complicated than that. Reality simply consists of different points of view.

Might, could, would – they are contemptible auxiliaries.

When I was playing, there were always lots of teams in contention for the league – Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool, Leeds. Every week was a big game and a big battle.

You hear doom and gloom about the Internet ruining young people’s command of English – that’s nonsense.

‚I am‘ is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that ‚I do‘ is the longest sentence?