All mothers love their own children as best they can, according to their temperament and circumstances, and all mothers should have done better, in their children's eyes, when the going gets tough for the children.

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

There was no such thing as defeat if you didn't accept it.

A 'weakness,' I now realize, is nothing but a strength not properly developed.

A woman has all too much substance in a man's eyes at the best of times. That is why men like women to be slim. Her lack of flesh negates her. The less of her there is, the less notice he need take of her. The more like a male she appears to be, the safer he feels.

If you wake up in the morning with a great sense of the things that have to be done in the day in order to get through to the next day, you lose the sense of the day as any kind of end in itself.

The prophets of doom, in my experience, are generally ignored and usually right.