You can't insure against the future, except by really believing in the best bit of you, and in the power beyond it.

I'll do my life work, sticking up for the love between man and woman.

Now the only decent way to get something done is to get it done by somebody who quite likes doing it.

One realm we have never conquered: the pure present.

She looked at him, and oh, the weariness to her, of the effort to understand another language, the weariness of hearing him, attending to him, making out who he was, as he stood there fair-bearded and alien, looking at her. She knew something of him, of his eyes. But she could not grasp him. She closed her eyes.

The near end of the street was rather dark and had mostly vegetable shops. Abundance of vegetables - piles of white and green fennel, like celery, and great sheaves of young, purplish, sea-dust-coloured artichokes . . . long strings of dried figs, mountains of big oranges, scarlet large peppers, a large slice of pumpkin, a great mass of colours and vegetable freshness. . . .

A book lives as long as it is unfathomed.