It was reasonable to struggle, to suffer, perhaps even to die, for a more just, a more compassionate society, but not in a world with no future where, all to soon, the very words "justice," "compassion," "society," "struggle," "evil," would be unheard echoes on an empty air.

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.

Perhaps it's only when people are dead that we can safely show how much we cared about them. We know that it's too late then for them to do anything about it.

Can we ever break free of the devices and desires of our own hearts? Might not our conscience be telling us what we most want to hear?

No literary form is more revealing, more spontaneous or more individual than a letter.

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.

Creativity doesn't flourish in an atmosphere of despotism, coercion and fear.