Ghosts seem harder to please than we are; it is as though they haunted for haunting’s sake -- much as we relive, brood, and smoulder over our pasts.

At the age of twelve I was finding the world too small: it appeared to me like a dull, trim back garden, in which only trivial games could be played.

When one is a child, the disposition of objects, tables and chairs and doors, seems part of the natural order: a house-move lets in chaos - as it does for a dog.

rudeness to Mrs. Dosely was like dropping a pat of butter on to a hot plate - it slid and melted away.

All good dialogue perhaps deals with something unprecedented.

children like change - for one thing, they never anticipate regret.

Good-byes breed a sort of distaste for whomever you say good-bye to; this hurts, you feel, this must not happen again.