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Sadism is not an infectious disease that strikes a person all of a sudden. It has a long prehistory in childhood and always originates in the desperate fantasies of a child who is searching for a way out of a hopeless situation.

Misery sells newspapers.

The writer is both a sadist and a masochist. We create people we love, and then we torture them. The more we love them, and the more cleverly we torture them along the lines of their greatest vulnerability and fear, the better the story.

It's people who are repressed and cannot express their fears that are dangerous.

I've always been fascinated by accounts of seemingly 'normal' people who have committed horrendous acts of cruelty and violence. You hear it on the news all the time.

When the writers themselves are a bit out of control, and their lives are collapsing around them, they seem to rejoice in misery and celebrate the wrong sort of things.

Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.

Terrorism has come to publishing. It is a grave concern when criticism is turned to mortal threats.

We see many who are struggling against adversity who are happy, and more although abounding in wealth, who are wretched.

Disturbances in society are never more fearful than when those who are stirring up the trouble can use the pretext of religion to mask their true designs.