That a literature in our time is living is shown in that way that it debates problems.

Dostoevsky preaches the morality of the pariah, the morality of the slave.

Any feeling that I was enriching my mind from those surrounding me was unfortunately rare with me.

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

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.

Just about this time, when in imagination I was so great a warrior, I had good use in real life for more strength, as I was no longer taken to school by the nurse, but instead had myself to protect my brother, two years my junior.