I'm all in favour of free expression provided it's kept rigidly under control.

If you think squash is a competitive activity, try flower arranging.

I suppose I'm the only person who remembers one of the most exciting of his ballets-it's the fruit of an unlikely collaboration between Nijinsky on the one hand and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on the other.

[B]riefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point. Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.

Cloisters, ancient libraries ... I was confusing learning with the smell of cold stone.

Mark my words, when a society has to resort to the lavatory for its humour, the writing is on the wall.

I have never understood disliking for war. It panders to instincts already catered for within the scope of any respectable domestic establishment.