Every island to a child is a treasure island.

If from infancy you treat children as gods, they are liable in adulthood to act as devils.

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 against fascism.

What a child doesn't receive he can seldom later give.

Open your mind to new experiences, particularly to the study of other ­people. Nothing that happens to a writer – however happy, however tragic – is ever wasted.

It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.