Meetings ... are rather like cocktail parties. You don't want to go, but you're cross not to be asked.

The letter of application ... should be a masterpiece of fiction, papering over all the cracks. Get it properly typed on decent writing paper. Never let it run over the page, people get bored with reading.

I can assure you that the class system is alive and well and living in people's minds in England.

Never drink black coffee at lunch; it will keep you awake all afternoon.

I have a theory that the secret of marital happiness is simple: drink in different pubs to your other half.

I think we ought to have a kindness year, or a kindness century.

it's a good idea to wait a few months before joining anything when you arrive at a village. A bookseller friend who retired to nearby Oxfordshire, and was worried he might be bored, got himself on to every village committee in the first six months, and spent the next ten years extricating himself.