A good library can provide the furniture of our minds and the threads from which we weave our dreams.

I was born in London, England, in 1938, a few months before the war, and spent the first years of my life there, although I was evacuated a couple of times for short periods. My schooling was very interrupted, both by frequent moves and by ill health.

I believe in an individual soul which travels through eternity. This life is far from all there is--in fact, it is a minute part, simply an antechamber, a deciding place where we choose the light from the dark, where we come to know what we truly value.

... She knew in her heart that to be without optimism, that core of reasonless hope in the spirit rather than the brain, was a fatal flaw, the seed of death.

People only tell lies when the truth is disagreeable to them, or frightens them, or to cover sin.

A good library can provide the furniture of our minds and the threads from which we weave our dreams.

The truth can be very sharp. But it makes a cleaner wound than lies. It will not fester