Much sheer effort goes into avoiding the truth; left to itself, it sweeps in like the tide.

Every time you open your wardrobe, you look at your clothes and you wonder what you are going to wear. What you are really saying is 'Who am I going to be today?

Fiction, on the whole, and if it is any good, tends to be a subversive element in society.

Beauty is the first present nature gives to women and the first it takes away.

No one should be allowed to give back the gift of life, unless they are very old and full of tears, when the body outlives the spirit, when they should be allowed to join the others who've already gone.

Food is the supremest of pleasures.

People fail you, children disappoint you, thieves break in, moths corrupt, but an Order of the British Empire goes on for ever.