To me and my kind life itself is a story and we have to tell it in stories - that is the way it falls.

Every piece of writing starts from what I call a grit a sight or sound, a sentence or happening that does not pass away but quite inexplicably lodges in the mind.

There is an Indian proverb that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emtional, and a spiritual . Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person.

To wake for the first time in a new place can be like another birth.

The best would be to have friends who came and went away; but if I had to choose between their never coming or never going away, I think I would choose that they do not come.

You must remember garden catalogues are as big liars as house-agents.

Of course one never knows in draft if it's going to turn out, even with my age and experience.