Increase your word power. Words are the raw material of our craft. The greater your vocabulary the more ­effective your writing. We who write in English are fortunate to have the richest and most versatile language in the world. Respect it.

Of all the things that human beings did together, the sexual act was the one with the most various of reasons.

Any visitor to an historic country town or city quickly becomes aware in his or her peregrinations that the most attractive houses in the centre are invariably the offices of lawyers.

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

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?

Murder is the unique crime, the only one for which we can never make reparation to the victim.

however long we have to live, there are never enough springs.