You cannot write down how people are good; you just know it, and cannot get away from it.

We're taking part in a divine comedy and we should realise that the play is always a comedy, in that we're all ultimately ridiculous.

The only redemptive feature of war is the brotherhood which it forges.

People who get on at school are the ones who play by the rules, and no one's going to get far in later life playing by the system.

Lots of us when we're children believe 'oh well, if the world knew us as we really are, they'd know what wonderful, clever, brilliant, charming people we really are.'

You cannot write down how people are good; you just know it, and cannot get away from it.

As George Orwell wisely observed a generation later, the only way swiftly to end a war is to lose it.