most of us have to be self-righteous before we can be righteous.

However deep our devotion may be to parents or to children, it is our contemporaries alone with whom understanding is instinctive and entire.

Nevertheless, hateful as saying 'No' always is to an imaginative person, and certain as the offence may be that it will cause to individuals whose own work does not require isolated effort, the writer who is engaged on a book must learn to say it. He must say it consistently to all interrupters; to the numerous callers and correspondents who want him to speak, open bazaars, see them for 'only' ten minutes, attend literary parties, put people up, or read, correct and find publishers for semi-literate manuscripts by his personal friends.

The pacifist's task today is to find a method of helping and healing which provides a revolutionary constructive substitute for war.

Why, I wonder, do people who at one time or another have all been young themselves, and who ought therefore to know better, generalize so suavely and so mendaciously about the golden hours of youth-that period of life when every sorrow seems permanent, and every setback insuperable?

The joys of motherhood are not excessively apparent during the first few weeks of a baby's life.

It is probably true to say that the largest scope for change still lies in men's attitude to women, and in women's attitude to themselves.