When I was younger, I avoided exercise or anything strenuous. I didn't even enjoy walking. As I got older, I spent so much time marking books or sitting at a desk writing that there was no room for exercise - not that I would have bothered anyway.

I think I'm brave because I've made decisions based - I hope not entirely selfishly - on what I think is right for me to do next.

Nobody is ordinary if you know where to look.

It was so silly to try to define things by words. What did one person mean by infatuation or obsession and another mean by love. The whole thing couldn't be tidied away with neat little labels." - Lena Gray

The whole art of life is knowing the right time to say things.

If you don't go to a dance you can never be rejected but you'll never get to dance either.

I once got a huge, expensive flower arrangement from a person I didn't like, who sent it out of pure guilt. It had a hideous bird-of-paradise in the middle, and I thought it would never fade and die. I hated it.