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

We stared at the odd garment and wondered what it was for. 'What is it?' asked Larry at length. 'It's a bathing costume, of course,' said Mother. 'What on earth did you think it was?' 'It looks like a badly skinned whale,' said Larry, peering at it closely.

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.

As I watched the pulsing fire among the trees and heard the beat of the drum merge and tremble with the voices, forming an intricate pattern of sound, I knew that someday I would have to return or be haunted forever by the beauty and mystery that is Africa.

Why keep in touch with them? That's what I want to know,' asked Larry despairingly. 'What satisfaction does it give you? They're all either fossilized or mental.' 'Indeed, they're not mental,' said Mother indignantly. 'Nonsense, Mother... Look at Aunt Bertha, keeping flocks of imaginary cats... and there's Great-Uncle Patrick, who wanders about nude and tells complete strangers how he killed whales with a penknife...They're all bats.

If naturalists go to heaven (about which there is considerable ecclesiastical doubt), I hope that I will be furnished with a troop of kakapo to amuse me in the evening instead of television.