It gradually dawned upon me that there was no one more difficult to please than my mother.

But when I was twelve years old I caught my first strong glimpse of one of the fundamental forces of existence, whose votary I was destined to be for life - namely, Beauty.

The appalling thing about war is that it kills all love of truth.

My father, though, could run very much faster. It was impossible to compete with him on the grass. But it was astonishing how slow old people were. Some of them could not run up a hill and called it trying to climb stairs.

I was a town child, it is true, but that did not prevent me enjoying open-air life, with plants and animals.

I came into the world two months too soon, I was in such a hurry.

The stream of time sweeps away errors, and leaves the truth for the inheritance of humanity.