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

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.

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

The sorrows of children are profound and unsuspected.

As every real estate agent knows, a poor house in good surroundings will sell for a higher price than a better house in poor surroundings, and in a town they confidently ask 25 percent more rent for a flat with a view of a park that for an identical flat with no view.

leisure is an attitude of mind, not simply remission of work.

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