Children want one thing at a time, and want that one thing passionately.

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

The fact is, people who don't have any misfortunes are very irritating to their neighbours. No opportunities for popping in with condolences and new-laid eggs. No visits to the afflicted. No opportunities for the milk of human kindness to flow. Naturally it doesn't.

You can't do such a lot and do it all so well and have much time left for the ordinary human feelings.

When there is too much to say it is easier to say nothing at all.

Most of the things one worries about never happen.

I used to do miserably in English literature, which I thought was a sign of moral turpitude. As I look back on it, I think it was rather to my credit. The notion of actually putting writers' words into other words is quite ridiculous because why bother if writers mean what they mean, and if they don't, why read them? There is, I suppose, a case for studying literary works in depth, but I don't quite know what 'in depth' means unless you read a paragraph over and over again.