"It is typical of Oxford," I said, "to start the new year in autumn."

The trouble with modern education is you never know how ignorant people are. With anyone over fifty you can be fairly confident what's been taught and what's been left out. But these young people have such an intelligent, knowledgeable surface, and then the crust suddenly breaks and you look down into depths of confusion you didn't know existed.

After all, damn it, what does being in love mean if you can't trust a person.

Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole.'-William Boot

A typical triumph of modern science to find the only part of Randolph that was not malignant and remove it.

We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us, but for ours to amuse them...

You spend the first term at Oxford meeting interesting and exciting people and the rest of your time there avoiding them