Expose a child to a particular environment at this susceptible time and he will perceive in the shapes of that environment until he dies.

In fiction I think we should have no agenda but to tell the truth.

[Friendship] is a relationship that has no formal shape, there are no rules or obligations or bonds as in marriage or the family, it is held together by neither law nor property nor blood, there is no glue in it but mutual liking. It is therefore rare.

Every green natural place we save saves a fragment of our sanity and gives us a little more hope that we have a future.

The meeting of writer and reader is an intimate act, and it properly takes place in private.

To try to save for everyone, for the hostile and independent as well as the committed, some of the health that flows down across the green ridges from the skyline, and some of the beauty and spirit that are still available to any resident of the valley who has a moment and the wit to lift up his eyes unto the hills.

In a way, it is beautiful to be young and hard up. With the right wife, and I had her, deprivation became a game.