a loss of sensibility follows a loss of innocence, at once a penalty and a compensation.

It's a beautiful sight to see good dancers doing simple steps. It's a painful sight to see beginners doing complicated patterns.

There was a wonderful atmosphere of gentle age, a smell of flowers and beeswax, sweet yet faintly sour and musty; a smell that makes you feel very tender towards the past.

It's odd how different a house feels when one is alone in it. It makes it easier to think rather private thoughts.

The family - that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to.

extreme happiness invites religion almost as much as extreme misery.

The tea was a comfort - and by that time I more than needed comfort.