The sorrows we imagine are more profound and inconsolable than real life leaves us time for.

We are perverse creatures and never satisfied.

children are not undeveloped versions of adult people: they are a different race of beings: they are children.

A garden is one of the few expressions of man's nature that is altogether benign.

Perhaps the way with any obsession is to ignore it simply. Not to fight it, since it draws strength from any contact with us, whether hostile or friendly.

when people go away, or when we leave the places we love, or something we treasure goes out of our life - I have always noticed that before it happens - this leaving, this parting - when we think about it beforehand we are overwhelmed with sadness at the loss to come. ... the most unbearable sense of loss, the worst homesickness of all, so I have found, is this loss and sickness we feel beforehand, before we ever leave home.

We love those we are happy with. We do. For how else can we know we love them, or how else define loving?