always either on a peak of happiness or drowning in black waters of despair they loved or they loathed, they lived in a world of superlatives

I do love translating; it is the pure pleasure of writing without the misery of inventing.

The great advantage of living in a large family is that early lesson of life's essential unfairness.

What is so nice & so unexpected about life is the way it improves as it goes along. I think you should impress this fact on your children because I think young people have an awful feeling that life is slipping past them & they must do something - catch something - they don't quite know what, whereas they've only got to wait & it all comes.

If one can't be happy, one must be amused.

I think housework is far more tiring and frightening than hunting is, no comparison, and yet after hunting we had eggs for tea and were made to rest for hours, but after housework people expect one to go on just as if nothing special had happened.

Always be civil to the girls, you never know who they may marry.