Every search has its own momentum. It is why a search makes such an excellent plot for a film or story.

We are perverse creatures and never satisfied.

... garden books are quite unconscious that besides telling us how to turn our patch of earth into a garden, they are also expressing the way their age looks at the world, the state of their society.

The sorrows of children are profound and unsuspected.

the large black slugs ... come out at dusk. Enormous slugs. As big as crocodiles. So huge we need a gun to shoot them. And by the end of the summer, if they go on growing, we shall have to go out in pairs together for protection.

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.

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