You gave too much rein to your imagination. Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master. The simplest explanation is always the most likely.

You know, Emily was a selfish old woman in her way. She was very generous, but she always wanted a return. She never let people forget what she had done for them - and, that way she missed love.

Until one looks back on one's own past one fails to realise what an extraordinary view of the world a child has.

If you love, you will suffer, and if you do not love, you do not know the meaning of a Christian life.

I live now on borrowed time, waiting in the anteroom for the summons that will inevitably come. And then - I go on to the next thing, whatever it is. One doesn't, luckily, have to bother about that.

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.

In my end is my beginning - that's what people are always saying. But what does it mean?