There are many things that are unbelievable. Especially before breakfast, is it not? That is what one of your classics says. Six impossible things before breakfast.

Trains are wonderful.... To travel by train is to see nature and human beings, towns and churches and rivers, in fact, to see life.

Every man should have aunts. They illustrate the triumph of guess work over logic.

The lure of the past came up to grab me. To see a dagger slowly appearing, with its gold glint, through the sand was romantic. The carefulness of lifting pots and objects from the soil filled me with a longing to be an archaeologist myself.

There is no question of defence. I have always acted in accordance with the dictates of my conscience. I have nothing with which to reproach myself.

Three months seems to me quite a reasonable time to complete a book, if one can get right down to it.

I've always noticed that if you speak the truth in a rather silly way nobody believes you.