The first duty of a lecturer: to hand you after an hour's discourse a nugget of pure truth to wrap up between the pages of your notebooks, and keep on the mantelpiece forever.

Distorted realities have always been my cup of tea.

Consolation for those moments when you can't tell whether you're the divinest genius or the greatest fool in the world.

When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet. . . indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.

Surely it was time someone invented a new plot, or that the author came out from the bushes.

My notion's to think of the human beings first and let the abstract ideas take care of themselves.

One must love everything.