Marriage is a book of which the first chapter is written in poetry and the remaining chapters in prose.

To dig one's own spade into one's own earth! Has life anything better to offer than this?

We both know, you and I, that if all men were gardeners, the world at last would be at peace.

It is only to the gardener that time is a friend, giving each year more than he steals.

A gardener is never shut out from his garden, wherever he may be. Its comfort never fails. Though the city may close about him, and the grime and soot descend upon him, he can still wander in his garden, does he but close his eyes.

Do you ever find yourself bursting into a sort of lunatic laughter at the sheer prettiness of things?

Let us be honest: most of us rather like our cats to have a streak of wickedness. I should not feel quite easy in the company of any cat that walked around the house with a saintly expression.