We forgive, we mortify our resentment; a week later some chain of thought carries us back to the original offence and we discover the old resentment blazing away as if nothing had been done about it at all. We need to forgive our brother seventy times seven not only for 490 offences but for one offence.

My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself.

I am a product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes, and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also, of endless books.

We have failed to practise ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people.

The bolt of Tash falls from above!' 'Does it ever get caught on a hook halfway?

We are not meant to be perpetually solemn: We must play.

It is by human avarice or human stupidity, not by the churlishness of nature, that we have poverty and overwork.