Don't just plan to write - write. It is only by writing, not dreaming about it, that we develop our own style.

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

If from infancy you treat children as gods, they are liable in adulthood to act as devils.

Metaphysical speculation is about as pointless as a discussion on the meaning of one's lungs. They're for breathing.

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.

Absolute nakedness was intrusive, confusing to the senses. Paradoxically, it both revealed and diminished identity.

First-class travel, provided one hasn't to pay for it oneself, is the most insidiously addictive of life's luxuries.