In my beginning is my end. In succession Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass. Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires, Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth Which is already flesh, fur and faeces, Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.

Love is most nearly itself When here and now cease to matter.

Our difficulties of the moment must always be dealt with somehow, but our permanent difficulties are difficulties of every moment.

Time past and time future allow but a little consciousness. To be conscious is not to be in time.

The difference between being an elder statesman And posing successfully as an elder statesman Is practically negligible.

We have all our private terrors, our particular shadows, our secret fears. We are afraid in a fear which we cannot face, which none understands, and our hearts are torn from us, our brains unskinned like the layers of an onion, ourselves the last.

War is not a life: it is a situation, one which may neither be ignored nor accepted.