It is difficult to be generous-minded to those we have greatly harmed.

A politician is required to listen to humbug, talk humbug, condone humbug. The most we can hope for is that we don't actually believe it.

If this were fiction, could even the most brilliant novelist contrive to make credible so short a period in which pride had been subdued and prejudice overcome?

History, which interprets the past to understand the present and confront the future is the least rewarding discipline for a dying species.

Charm is always genuine; it may be superficial but it isn't false.

A picnic may well be a metaphor for life. The essentials for happiness are the right company, moderate if sanguine expectations and a reasonable standard of physical sustenance and comfort, the whole being bedeviled by the belief that there is always something better to be had if only one presses on.

Feel, he told himself, feel, feel, feel. Even if what you feel is pain, only let yourself feel.