A man who lives with nature is used to violence and is companionable with death. There is more violence in an English hedgerow than in the meanest streets of a great city.

the most successful marriages were always based on both partners feeling that they had done rather well for themselves.

I learned early and at that kitchen table that there are ways of avoiding, without guilt, the commitments of love.

Can we ever break free of the devices and desires of our own hearts? Might not our conscience be telling us what we most want to hear?

The modern holy trinity is money, sex and celebrity.

Youth goes caparisoned in immortality.

There are two options for any society: total prohibition as in a totalitarian state, or total license. Both avoid the ardours of decision. Both have the attraction of certainty. The difficult option is to decide where the line should be drawn and this, surely, is the responsiblity of any civilized and democratic country.