Best of an island is once you get there - you can't go any farther...you've come to the end of things.

The amount of missing girls I've had to trace and their family and their friends always say the same thing. 'She was a bright and affectionate disposition and had no men friends'. That's never true. It's unnatural. Girls ought to have men friends. If not, then there's something wrong about them.

Life itself is an unsolved mystery", said the clergyman gravely.

Surfing is like that. You are either vigorously cursing or else you are idiotically pleased with yourself.

Is there ever any particular spot where one can put one's finger and say, "It all began that day, at such a time and such a place, with such an incident?

Many friends have said to me, 'I never know when you write your books, because I've never seen you writing, or even seen you go away to write.' I must behave rather as dogs do when they retire with a bone; they depart in a secretive manner and you do not see them again for an odd half hour. They return self-consciously with mud on their noses. I do much the same.

there is no fanatic like a religious fanatic.