The one Bach piece I learnt made me feel I was being repeatedly hit on the head with a teaspoon.

Perhaps if I make myself write I shall find out what is wrong with me.

What is it about the English countryside — why is the beauty so much more than visual? Why does it touch one so?

Am I really admitting that my sister is determined to marry a man she has only seen once and doesn't much like the look of? It is half real and half pretense - and I have an idea that it is a game most girls play when they meet an eligible young men. They just...wonder.

I could hear rain still pouring from the gutters and a thin branch scraping against one of the windows; but the church seemed completely cut off from the restless day outside--just as I felt cut off from the church. I thought: I am a restlessness inside a stillness inside a restlessness.

Though he had very little Latin beyond "Cave canem," he had, as a young dog, devoured Shakespeare (in a tasty leather binding).

Perhaps it would really be rather dull to be married and settled for life. Liar! It would be heaven.