The people with the strong, brave exteriors are just as weak and vulnerable as the rest of us. And of course they never admit to their childish practices, their moments of weakness or absurdity, and then the rest of us think that's how it should be.

And that, in a way, was the burden of being a philosopher: one knew what one had to do, but it was so often the opposite of what one really wanted to do.

I am easily persuaded to continue to have fun.

There are many women whose lives would be immeasurably improved by widowhood, but one should not always point that out.

It was easy to be moral when that was the way you felt anyway. The hard bit about morality was making yourself feel the opposite of what you really felt.

The previously unloved may find it hard to believe that they are now loved; that is such a miracle, they feel; such a miracle.

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