Why is humanity so excessive in the way it does things? The golden mean seems out of fashion.

One could do with a longer year - so much to do, so little done, alas.

The manuscript may go forth from the writer to return with a faithfulness passing the faithfulness of the boomerang or the homing pigeon.

As to the family, I have never understood how that fits in with the other ideals -- or, indeed, why it should be an ideal at all.

Cruelty was the devil, and most people were, in one way or another, cruel. Tyranny, suppression, persecution, torture, slavery, war, neglect - all were cruel. The world was acid and sour with hate, fat with greed, yellow with the triumph of the strong and the rich.

There's one thing about freedom ... each generation of people begins by thinking they've got it for the first time in history, and ends by being sure the generation younger than themselves have too much of it. It can't really always have been increasing at the rate people suppose, or there would be more of it by now.

Take my camel, dear,' said my aunt Dot, climbing down from that animal on her return from high Mass.