Words were the only net to catch a mood, the only sure weapon against oblivion.

In childhood the daylight always fails too soon - except when there are going to be fireworks.

However long the horror continued, one must not get to the stage of refusing to think about it. To shrink from direct pain was bad enough, but to shrink from vicarious pain was the ultimate cowardice. And whereas to conceal direct pain was a virtue, to conceal vicarious pain was a sin. Only by feeling it to the utmost, and by expressing it, could the rest of the world help to heal the injury which had caused it. Money, food, clothing, shelter - people could give all these and still it would not be enough; it would not absolve them from paying also, in full, the imponderable tribute of grief.

When there is a world scarcity of any commodity, whether it's food or free speech, then the whole world must go on rations in order that eventually the whole world may have it again in plenty.

It seemed to her sometimes that the most important thing about marriage was not a home or children or a remedy against sin, but simply there being always an eye to catch.

Words were the only net to catch a mood, the only sure weapon against oblivion.

Physical weather certainly is beyond our control. ... But human weather - the psychological climate of the world - is not beyond our control. The human race is its own rain and its own sun. It creates its own cyclones and anti-cyclones. The ridges of high pressure which we sometimes enjoy, the troughs of low pressure which we so often endure, are of our own making and nobody else's.