I was so flattered that someone wanted me to write a book, I said I would. It was published in 1969.

Always be nice to everyone in the firm on the way up. You never know who you may meet on the way down.

I love the long grass coming up to meet the willows.

Leo, sadly, has Parkinsons, but he used to cook all sorts of dazzling things.

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

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.

People always assume that bachelors are single by choice and spinsters because nobody asked them. It never enters their heads that poor bachelors might have worn the knees of their trousers out proposing to girls who rejected them or that a girl might deliberately stay unmarried.