There was a good deal to be said, Hilary decided, for middle age and infirmity. The years in which one demanded much of life were left behind, together with the bitterness of not getting what one wanted. One's values, too, were altered. Gifts that once one took for granted, sunshine and birdsong, freedom from pain, sleep and one's daily bread, seemed now so extraordinarily precious.

All the best things are seen first of all at a far distance.

A well-trained dog is like religion, it sets the deserving at their ease and is a terror to evildoers.

I don't think there's anything more tiring ... than expecting people who don't turn up.

Nothing living should ever be treated with contempt. Whatever it is that lives, a man, a tree, or a bird, should be touched gently, because the time is short. Civilization is another word for respect for life.

If you lose your reason, you lose it into the hands of God....It's the only place where anything is safe. And when you're dead it's only what's there you'll have. Nothing else.

Faith given back to us after a night of doubt is a stronger thing, and far more valuable to us than faith that has never been tested.