The telling of a story, like virtually everything in this life, was always made all the easier by a cup of tea.

Reality television, which turned its eye on people who were doing nothing but being themselves, was the perfect expression of this trend [of narcissism]. Let's look at ourselves, it said. Aren't we fascinating?

You can go through life and make new friends every year - every month practically - but there was never any substitute for those friendships of childhood that survive into adult years. Those are the ones in which we are bound to one another with hoops of steel.

Our minds can come up with the most entertaining possibilities, if we let them. But most of the time, we keep them under far too close a check.

Talking about pumpkins doesn't make them grow.

I am easily persuaded to continue to have fun.

The telling of a story, like virtually everything in this life, was always made all the easier by a cup of tea.