In our loss and fear we craved the acts of religion, the ceremonies that allow us to admit our helplessness, our dependence on the great forces we do not understand.

The menopause is probably the least glamorous topic imaginable; and this is interesting, because it is one of the very few topics to which cling some shreds and remnants of taboo. A serious mention of menopause is usually met with uneasy silence; a sneering reference to it is usually met with relieved sniggers. Both the silence and the sniggering are pretty sure indications of taboo.

As a man's real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing,but does only and wholly what he must do.

Truth is a matter of the imagination.

Without war there are no heroes. What harm would that be? Oh, Lavinia, what a woman's question that is.

He knew now, and the knowledge was hard, that his task had never been to undo what he had done, but to finish what he had begun.

Why can I never set my heart on a possible thing?