“Uncle Acton spent the whole of his working life in India, for the simple reason that he gave up work very young.”

“My mother was the perfect Spartan mother. I have always been able to imagine her telling her sons to return from battle 'with their shields, or on them'. She did actually try it on my father at the...”

“As I said before, I took to miniature painting without a completely whole heart, on the advice of my elders and betters. Generally speaking, I do not think that one should ever take another person'...”

“I know someone who has never been able to read _The Cuckoo Clock_ since leaving her girlhood home, because it had to be read sitting halfway up the stairs, where the light through a stained-glass l...”

“As we grow older, we forget how near to the ground we once were. I do not mean merely because our heads were lower down than they are now, though of course that comes into it; but near in the sense...”

“Jean and I had, as I think a great many best friends have, a secret make-believe world of our own. We had only to say, 'Let's be Lilian and Diana,' and, as though it was a magical formula, step str...”

“work at our responsibility as parents as if everything in life counted on it, because in fact everything in life does count on it.”

“Happiness [is] only real when shared”

“That's what people do who love you. They put their arms around you and love you when you're not so lovable.”