To visit a new country for the first time is great fun; but it is even greater fun to introduce somebody else to a country that you know.

In childhood the daylight always fails too soon - except when there are going to be fireworks.

For to love, loveless, is a bitter pill:But to be loved, unloving, bitterer still.

swans ... always look as though they'd just been reading their own fan-mail.

to achieve unity without uniformity is the whole essence of the democratic way of life.

Punctuality is the thief of adventure.

[Gardening] is a means by which you can attain many valuable hours of solitude without being thought unsociable.

The worst of gardening is that it's so full of metaphors one hardly knows where to begin.

It's just as important to marry the right life as the right person.

librarianship is one of the few callings in the world for which is it still possible to feel unqualified admiration and respect.

It took me forty years on earth To reach this sure conclusion: There is no Heaven but clarity, No Hell except confusion.

He would bear scars because of me, as I carried them for him.

Reading and writing... are exciting. The most exciting things I can think of. And now, as I reflect... I have to say that I've been lucky in that I'm amused by what I do - sufficiently amused.

I spent a week there one afternoon.

Perfection is impossible without humility. Why should I strive for perfection, if I am already good enough?

I don't want to be creating new foreign policy for - for my country or in any way to distance myself in the foreign policy of - of our nation, but we respect the right of a nation to defend itself.

Like most lazy upper-middle-class kids, American Studies seemed like a fun way to use your knowledge of TV to get an A.

Someone now has to step up and take on the mantelpiece.

Stupidity is the only natural capital offense.

I want to do more comedy... I've done a couple TV shows that had some comedy going on.