We think the world is ours forever, but we are little more than squatters.

Edinburgh used to be a haughty city.

Antonia was very conscious of the corrosive power of envy and felt that it was this emotion, more than any other, which lay behind human unhappiness. People did not realize how widespread envy was.

A wedding was a strange ceremony, she thought, with all those formal words, those solemn vows made by one to another; whereas the real question that should be put to the two people involved was a very simple one. Are you happy with each other? was the only question that should be asked; to which they both should reply, preferably in unison, Yes.

There are old mycologists and there are bold mycologists, but there are no old, bold mycologists.

It is sometimes easier to be happy if you don't know everything.

The point about love, the essential point, was that we loved what we loved. We did not choose. We just loved.