It wasn't until I was 37 that I grasped the great truth that you've got to write your own books and nobody else's, and then everything followed from there.

I play the piano passionately and inaccurately. Indeed, I worked out the other day that of my seventy-five years; I have spent at least one year sitting on a piano stool.

Ralph... would treat the day's decisions as though he were playing chess. The only trouble was that he would never be a very good chess player.

Heaven lies around us in our infancy.

The candle-buds opened their wide white flowers....Their scent spilled out into the air and took possession of the island.

For a small island [Great Britain], the place is remarkably diverse.

If I blow the conch and they don't come back; then we've had it. We shan't keep the fire going. We'll be like animals. We'll never be rescued." "If you don't blow, we'll soon be animals anyway.