There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you.

What we call the highest and the lowest in nature are both equally perfect. A willow bush is as beautiful as the human form divine.

For quiet, solitary and observant children create their own world and live in it, nourishing their imaginations on the material at hand.

With opportunity the world is very interesting.

In the time of swords and periwigs and full-skirted coats with flowered lappets - when gentlemen wore ruffles, and gold-laced waistcoats of paduasoy and taffeta - there lived a tailor in Gloucester.

I think prejudice and tradition count for three-quarters in matters of religion.

So much perfection argues rottenness somewhere.