after all the work of the philosophers on his soul and the doctors on his body, what can we really say we know about a man? That he is, when all is said and done, just a passage for liquids and solids, a pipe of flesh.

To be the equal of reality you must learn how to ignore it without danger.

We should tackle reality in a slightly jokey way, otherwise we miss its point.

The heaviest impact of the work of art is in the guts. Art does not reason. It manhandles you and changes you.

'We live' writes Pursewarden somewhere 'lives based upon selected fictions. Our view of reality is conditioned by our position in space and time — not by our personalities as we like to think. Thus every interpretation oа reality is based upon a unique position. Two paces east or west and the whole picture is changed.

The national characteristics... the restless metaphysical curiosity, the tenderness of good living and the passionate individualism. This is the invisible constant in a place with which the ordinary tourist can get in touch just by sitting quite quietly over a glass of wine in a Paris bistro.

They say that if you get bored enough with calamity you can learn to laugh.