Aspirin is so good for roses, brandy for sweet peas, and a squeeze of lemon-juice for the fleshy flowers, like begonias.

Erosion, desertification, and pollution have become our lot. It is a weird form of suicide, for we are bleeding our planet to death.

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

Tea would arrive, the cakes squatting on cushions of cream, toast in a melting shawl of butter, cups agleam and a faint wisp of steam rising from the teapot shawl.

Gradually the magic of the island [Corfu] settled over us as gently and clingingly as pollen.

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.