You never forget the people who were kind to you in childhood, do you, sir?

It is surely unreasonable to credit that only one small star in the immensity of the universe is capable of developing and supporting intelligent life. But we shall not get to them and they will not come to us.

Great literature cannot grow from a neglected or impoverished soil. Only if we actually tend or care will it transpire that every hundred years or so we might get a Middlemarch.

Crime fiction confirms our belief, despite some evidence to the contrary, that we live in a rational, comprehensible, and moral universe.

The tragedy of loss is not that we grieve, but that we cease to grieve, and then perhaps the dead are dead at last.

It is always easy to question the judgement of others in matters of which we may be imperfectly informed.

we can forgive anything as long as it isn't done to us.