[My father and his friends] believed in equality for women without troubling to acquire the basic domestic skills which would have made that equality….

When I heard, Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, I thought, Did he fall or was he pushed?.

A picnic may well be a metaphor for life. The essentials for happiness are the right company, moderate if sanguine expectations and a reasonable stan….

Books of quotations ... afford me one of the most undemanding but satisfying forms of reading pleasure..

No literary form is more revealing, more spontaneous or more individual than a letter..

What the detective story is about is not murder but the restoration of order..

Increase your word power. Words are the raw material of our craft. The greater your vocabulary the more ­effective your writing. We who write in Engl….

I believe that political correctness can be a form of linguistic fascism, and it sends shivers down the spine of my generation who went to war agains….

It's possible to fight intolerance, stupidity and fanaticism when they come separately. When you get all three together it's probably wiser to get ou….

Any visitor to an historic country town or city quickly becomes aware in his or her peregrinations that the most attractive houses in the centre are ….

But what do you believe? I don't just mean religion. What are you sure of?" "That once I was not and that now I am. That one day I shall no longer be..

Don't just plan to write - write. It is only by writing, not dreaming about it, that we develop our own style..

Can we ever break free of the devices and desires of our own hearts? Might not our conscience be telling us what we most want to hear?.

We who write in English are fortunate to have the richest and most versatile language in the world. Respect it..

It's easy to get a reputation for wisdom. It's only necessary to live long, speak little and do less..

Early this morning, 1 January 2021, three minutes after midnight, the last human being to be born on earth was killed in a pub brawl in a suburb of B….

I learned early and at that kitchen table that there are ways of avoiding, without guilt, the commitments of love..

The tragedy of loss is not that we grieve, but that we cease to grieve, and then perhaps the dead are dead at last..

Love, always love. Perhaps that’s what we’re all looking for..

There are two options for any society: total prohibition as in a totalitarian state, or total license. Both avoid the ardours of decision. Both have ….

The modern holy trinity is money, sex and celebrity..