When she bought the cats her mother asked her straight out if they were 'baby substitutes'. 'No, ' Ruth had answered, straight-faced. 'They're kittens. If I had a baby it would be a cat substitute.

Peter is suffering from an attack of nostalgia, she knows the symptoms. She mustn't join in otherwise she'll be swept away too, drowning in a quicksand of the past.

I sailboat raced, I love to go out on my motorcycle alone, but I also love my family dearly. I love that aspect of my life as well.

I cannot imagine a sorrier pursuit than struggling for years to write a book that attempts to appeal to people who do not read in the first place.

Archimedes, Newton, and Gauss, these three, are in a class by themselves among the great mathematicians, and it is not for ordinary mortals to attempt to range them in order of merit.

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.

We are off! The courses and topsails are set: the coral-hung anchor swings from the bow: and together, the three royals are given to the breeze, that follows us out to sea like the baying of a hound.

The big oxygen thing is out for Benni McCarthy... he's got a lot of medical round him

I'm willing to admit that I may not always be right, but I am never wrong.

Where you criminalize people living with HIV or those at greatest risk, you fuel the epidemic.

If there is neither excessive wealth nor immoderate poverty in a nation, then justice may be said to prevail.