Beauty is precious, you see, and the more beautiful something is, the more precious it is; and the more precious it is the more it hurts us that it will fade away; and the more we are hurt by beauty, the more we love the world.

How strange that the world should change because of words, and words change because of the world

Like many men, I am not ashamed to admit that my principal joys are domestic. I love cooking, and I love looking after my children. Indeed, the times that I have with them are the only ones when I feel unconditionally happy.

Love is a kind of dementia with very precise and oft-repeated clinical symptoms.

So the news that divorced fathers are to be denied a legal right to a relationship with their children, in the long overdue review of family law published this week, fills me with horror and despair.

Love itself is what is left over when being "in love" has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.

He gets into the habit of thinking so passionately at night that he begins to be persecuted by insomnia.