For a young man to start his career with a love affair with an older woman was quite de rigueur ... Of course, it must not go on for too long. An apprenticeship was a very different thing from a career.

Prose is a poor thing, a poor inadequate thing, compared with poetry which says so much more in shorter time.

Nothing shows up the difference between the things said or read, so much as the daily experience of it.

Violence, passion, indignation, loyalty, integrity, incorruptibility, shameless egoism, generosity, excitability, energy, a hundred horse-power drive - none of it very subtle: Ethel [Smyth] didn't deal in pastel shades, she went for the stronger colors, the blood-red, anything deep and pumping out of the arteries of the heart.

The public, as a whole, finds reassurance in longevity, and, after the necessary interlude of reaction, is disposed to recognize extreme old age as a sign of excellence. The long-liver has triumphed over at least one of man's initial handicaps: the brevity of life.

There is always something else to do. A gardener should have nine times as many lives as a cat.

Successful gardening is not necessarily a question of wealth, it is a question of love, taste, and knowledge.