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

To visit a new country for the first time is great fun; but it is even greater fun to introduce somebody else to a country that you know.

A single person is a manageable entity, whom you can either make friends with or leave alone. But half of a married couple is not exactly a whole human being: if the marriage is successful it is something a little more than that; if unsuccessful, a little less. In either case, a fresh complication is added to the already intricate business of friendship: as Clem had once remarked, you might as well try to dance a tarantella with a Siamese twin.

To be put down in this world, and given only eighty years to get to know it in, is like being let loose in the United States of America for the first time with a high-powered car and unlimited gasoline - but with a visa that is valid for only a week. It's agonizing, that's what it is.

swans ... always look as though they'd just been reading their own fan-mail.

librarianship is one of the few callings in the world for which is it still possible to feel unqualified admiration and respect.

It took me forty years on earth To reach this sure conclusion: There is no Heaven but clarity, No Hell except confusion.