Travel is a private pleasure, since it consists entirely of things felt and things seen.

Is it better to be extremely ambitious, or rather modest? Probably the latter is safer; but I hate safety, and would rather fail gloriously than dingily succeed.

There's no beginning to the farmer's year, / Only recurrent patterns on a scroll / Unwinding...

Autumn in felted slipper shuffles on, Muted yet fiery.--Vita Sackville-West

I miss you even more than I could have believed; and I was prepared to miss you a good deal.

Travel is the most private of pleasures. There is no greater bore than the travel bore. We do not in the least want to hear what he has seen in Hong-Kong.

I like owls. I admire their intransigent spirit. I have respected them deeply ever since I met a baby owl in a wood, when it fell over dead, apparently from sheer temper, because I dared to approach it. It defied me first, and then died. I have never forgotten the horror and shame I experienced when that soft fluffy thing (towards which I had nothing but the most humanitarian motives) fell dead from rage at my feet.