When I walked to school in the mornings I would start out alone but would pick up four other boys along the way. We would set out together after school across the village green.

My dear young fellow,' the Old-Green-Grasshopper said gently, 'there are a whole lot of things in this world of ours you haven't started wondering about yet.

If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.

I think probably kindness is my number one attribute in a human being. I'll put it before any of the things like courage or bravery or generosity or anything else.

Somewhere inside all of us is the power to change the world.

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.

I shot down some German planes and I got shot down myself, crashing in a burst of flames and crawling out, getting rescued by brave soldiers.

The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it.

I was a fighter pilot, flying Hurricanes all round the Mediterranean. I flew in the Western Desert of Libya, in Greece, in Syria, in Iraq and in Egypt.

Do you know what breakfast cereal is made of? It's made of all those little curly wooden shavings you find in pencil sharpeners!

Prayer beautifies you

My heart's cracking apart all over again because of the way I've missed him.

Hollow slogans like "Making your country great again" only lead to one result, collapse.

This book is visceral like how your small intestine is visceral

I would be able to defend my actions, no matter what [evidence] they had on me.

She had nothing to wish otherwise, but that the days did not pass so swiftly. It was a delightful visit;-perfect, in being much too short.

I just want to be normal, like everybody else." "Are you sure that being like everybody else will make you happy?

The failures of other genres to provide an emotional connection with some of their characters and narratives gives memoir a toehold.

In Africa it's difficult to carry the money, it's difficult to have a banking system with tellers, with distribution of cash. So they are using their mobile phones.

Possessing things is not that interesting. Living in a grand environment to show myself and others that I have wealth has zero appeal.