Pride makes us long for a solution to things – a solution, a purpose, a final cause; but the better telescopes become, the more stars appear.

A pier is a disappointed bridge; yet stare at it for long enough and you can dream it to the other side of the Channel.

Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books.

The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously.

The writer must be universal in sympathy and an outcast by nature: only then can he see clearly.

The land of embarrassment and breakfast.

When you read a great book, you don't escape from life, you plunge deeper into it.

History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.

What is the easiest, the most comfortable thing for a writer to do? To congratulate the society in which he lives: to admire its biceps, applaud its progress, tease it endearingly about its follies.

Some of the freckles I once loved are now closer to liver spots. But it’s still the eyes we look at, isn’t it? That’s where we found the other person, and find them still.

The more you learn, the less you fear. "Learn" not in the sense of academic study, but in the practical understanding of life.

Too often it’s about what stands before us, not what stands within us.

Anything is possible by divine grace.

This IS exactly how things look just before your dreams ignite!

Coal mines, like a hard life, have seen the best diamonds of innovation, more than any jewel factory.

Death is the ultimate negative.

Continue to share your heart with people even if it's been broken.

The quarter of an hour before dinner is the worst that suitors can choose.

Man just went past with a cat on his head.

In the end, the tragedy of Harold Wilson was that you couldn't believe a word he said

There are a million examples of not feeling the jazz, but using the jazz.