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.

Daniel supposed he had a secret life. Most people did; it was hardly possible to live without one.

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

[My father and his friends] believed in equality for women without troubling to acquire the basic domestic skills which would have made that equality possible.

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.

I don't want anyone to look to me, not for protection, not for happiness, not for love, not for anything.

Death ... obliterates family resemblance as it does personality: there is no affinity between the living and the dead.