there are virtues which are very well in the abstract, but which, encountered in the flesh, can be a source of extreme irritation.

There is and always has been for me a peculiar need to write. This is very different from wanting to be a writer. To be a writer always seemed something so far removed from my talents and abilities and imaginings that it didn't afflict me at all as a notion when I was young. But I was always conscious that I wanted to write.

Being in a rage was rather like being out in a thunderstorm - you couldn't hear yourself think.

Any road is bound to arrive somewhere if you follow it far enough

There is a country proverb which says, 'If you don't trouble trouble - trouble won't trouble you.

... the things that happened in your body were never as bad as the things that happened in your mind.

there are virtues which are very well in the abstract, but which, encountered in the flesh, can be a source of extreme irritation.