I do wish you wouldn't argue with me when I'm knitting.

There is no first world and third world. There is only one world, for all of us to live and delight in.

A house is not a home until it has a dog.

You cannot begin to preserve any species of animal unless you preserve the habitat in which it dwells. Disturb or destroy that habitat and you will exterminate the species as surely as if you had shot it. So conservation means that we have to preserve forest and grassland, river and lake, even the sea itself. This is vital not only for the preservation of animal life generally, but for the future existence of man himself - a point that seems to escape many people.

Among the myrtles the mantids moved, lightly, carefully, swaying slightly, the quintessence of evil. They were lank and green, with chinless faces and monstrous globular eyes, frosty gold, with an expression of intense, predatory madness in them. The crooked arms, with their fringes of sharp teeth, would be raised in mock supplication to the insect world, so humble, so fervent, trembling slightly when a butterfly flew too close.

They were maps that lived, maps that one could study, frown over, and add to; maps, in short, that really meant something.

My childhood in Corfu shaped my life. If I had the craft of Merlin, I would give every child the gift of my childhood.