The bird with the thorn in its breast, it follows an immutable law; it is driven by it knows not what to impale itself, and die singing. At the very instant the thorn enters there is no awareness in it of the dying to come; it simply sings and sings until there is not the life left to utter another note. But we, when we put the thorns in our breasts, we know. We understand. And still we do it. Still we do it.

The lovely thing about being forty is that you can appreciate twenty-five-year-old men more.

... the most insoluble problems are those which by their very nature can have no space within them for dreams.

When we press the thorn to our chest we know, we understand, and still we do it.

If you love people, they kill you. If you need people, they kill you. They do I tell you!

I escaped the torture of my childhood home by reading. To this day it is still one of my greatest pleasures.

The Labour Party of today has fits of horrors of the very thought of somebody like me might saying that they bought in white Australia. But I believe they did.