Life is a disease.

What did a few ripples in the flesh matter when, all too soon, now or later, that flesh would be making its return journey to dust?

Dreams say what they mean, but they don't say it in daytime language.

I'm always aware that I risk being taken for a neurasthenic prima donna when I explain to someone who wants 'just a little' of my time that five minutes of the wrong kind of distraction can ruin a working day.

The race of children possesses magically sagacious powers.

I confess, right at the start, to the doubts - and sometimes outright dreads - that go with me as I climb the stairs to my study in the morning, coffee mug in hand: I have to admit to the habitual apprehension mixed with a sort of reverence, as I light the incense . . . and wonder: what is going to happen today? Will anything happen? Will the angel come today?

During the act of writing I have told myself something that I didn't know I knew.