Wine is a grand thing," I said. "It makes you forget all the bad.

Bigotry is an odd thing. To be bigoted you have to be absolutely sure you are right and nothing makes that surety and righteousness like continence. Continence is the foe of heresy.

Now, being in Africa, I was hungry for more of it, the changes of the seasons, the rains with no need to travel, the discomforts that you paid to make it real, the names of the trees, of the small animals, and all the birds, to know the language and have time to be in it and to move slowly.

Later he had seen the things that he could never think of and later still he had seen much worse.

What is moral is what you feel good after.

The thing is to become a master and in your old age to acquire the courage to do what children did when they knew nothing.

Worry destroys the ability to write. Ill health is bad in the ratio that it produces worry which attacks your subconscious and destroys your nerves.