The world is changed not by the self-regarding, but by men and women prepared to make fools of themselves.

I wonder if childhood is ever really happy. Just as well, perhaps. To be blissfully happy so young would leave one always seeking to recapture the unobtainable. Like those people who were always happiest at school or university. Always going back. No reunion ever missed. It always seemed to me rather pathetic.

you'd like the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That must be the most futile oath anyone ever swears.

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 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.

Human kindness is like a defective tap, the first gush may be impressive but the stream soon dries up.

What the detective story is about is not murder but the restoration of order.