Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this: "You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do."

You have to be grown up, really grown up, not merely in years, to understand your parents.

Time and distance from the first and second world wars doesn't seem to lessen their horrors.

On the news two dozen events of fantastically different importance are announced in exactly the same tone of voice. The voice doesn't discriminate between a divorce, a horse race, a war in the Middle East.

I hate to sound clichéd, but I do see life as a journey. How else can you see it?

It is the mark of great people to treat trifles as trifles and important matters as important.

Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this: "You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do."