Life is rather like a tin of sardines - we're all of us looking for the key..

No mention of God. They keep Him up their sleeves for as long as they can, vicars do. They know it puts people off..

I think the writer's quite low down in the hierarchy really. But the fact that they took the piss out of Nicholas [Hynter] who, besides being the dir….

One recipe for happiness is to have to sense of entitlement.' To this she added a star and noted at the bottom of the page: 'This is not a lesson I h….

You don't put your life into your books, you find it there..

Life is like a box of sardines and we are all looking for the key..

Polly: Education with socialists, it's like sex, all right as long as you don't have to pay for it..

Life is generally something that happens elsewhere..

But then books, as I'm sure you know, seldom prompt a course of action. Books generally just confirm you in what you have, perhaps unwittingly, decid….

We have fish and chips, which W. and I fetch from the shop in Settle market-place. Some local boys come in and there is a bit of chat between them an….

I've never seen the point of the sea, except where it meets the land. The shore has a point. The sea has none..

My experience came before most of you were born. My school was a state school in Leeds and the headmaster usually sent students to Leeds University b….

Authors, she soon decided, were probably best met within the pages of their novels, and were as much creatures of the reader's imagination as the cha….

Remember. You are a physician. You are not a policeman nor are you a minister of religion. You must take people as they come. Remember, too that thou….

Nature played a cruel trick on her by giving her a waxed mustache..

I'm not "happy" but I'm not unhappy about it..

[talking about the Holocaust] 'But to put something in context is a step towards saying it can be understood and that it can be explained. And if it ….

You always know when you're going to arrive. If you go by car, you don't. Apart from anything else, I prefer cycling. It puts you in a good mood, I f….

History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket..

But most men regard their life as a poem that women threaten. They may not have two spondees to rub together but they still want to pen their saga un….

To read is to withdraw.To make oneself unavailable. One would feel easier about it if the pursuit inself were less...selfish..