The service took place on one of those afternoons that occur only in the past.

But happiness is no respecter of persons.

I want you to know that you are not alone in your being alone.

And then I saw him and nothing was ever the same again. The sky was never the same colour, the moon never the same shape: the air never smelt the same, food never tasted the same. Every word I knew changed its meaning, everything that once was stable and firm became as insubstantial as a puff of wind, and every puff of wind became a solid thing I could feel and touch.

When you've seen a nude infant doing a backward somersault you know why clothing exists.

Those who rule the world get so little opportunity to run about and laugh and play in it.

To be human and to be adult means constantly to be in the grip of opposing emotions, to have daily to reconcile apparently conflicting tensions. I want this, but need that. I cherish this, but I adore its opposite too.