What was any art but a mould in which to imprison for a moment the shining elusive element which is life itself - life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose.

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.

Success is never so interesting as struggle

Of all the bewildering things about a new country, the absence of human landmarks is one of the most depressing and disheartening.

The sky was a midnight-blue, like warm, deep, blue water, and the moon seemed to lie on it like a water-lily, floating forward with an invisible current.

The fact that I was a girl never damaged my ambitions to be a pope or an emperor.

It takes a great deal of experience to become natural.

Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen.

Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky.

The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is.

The end is nothing; the road is all.

I constantly reminded myself with the fact that the world isn't about what's fair, but how you cope with what is unfair.

People who feel positively think differently. They think better.

The world is a reflection of who we are and if we don't like the reflection, it doesn't really help to break the mirror.

Neither books nor people have Velcro Sides -- there must be a bonding agent -- someone who attaches child to book.

People are just greedy animals, after all.

Necessity may render a doubtful act innocent, but it cannot make it praiseworthy

I like to be able to do things on my own. I'm a big boy. I can drive myself to an appearance or get on a plane. I like a little bit of independence...

The notion of 'history from below' hit the history profession in England very hard around the time I came to Oxford in the early 1960s.

Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes, and when again they open, the sun will rise.