I find myself increasingly shocked at the unthinking and automatic rubbishing of men which is now so part of our culture that it is hardly even noticed.

We use our parents like recurring dreams, to be entered into when needed.

A simple grateful thought turned heavenwards is the most perfect prayer.

Whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.

If a fish is the movement of water embodied, given shape, then cat is a diagram and pattern of subtle air.

Every child has the capacity to be everything.

Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the opportunity to do so.

What's terrible is to pretend that second-rate is first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.

Things are not quite so simple always as black and white.

You have to be grown up, really grown up, not merely in years, to understand your parents.

There is nothing more boring for an intelligent woman than to spend endless amounts of time with small children.

I do believe in the power of prayer. I do. And I believe in the power of human kindness.

The only alternative to making mistakes is for someone to make all your decisions for you, in which case you will make their mistakes instead of your own.

Self-importance requires spending most of one's life offended by something or someone.

Not what we have But what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.

I've always felt from everyone I talk to that the fans feel like I'm tangible and they can talk to me and they know me.

Nothing feels worse than having to break the stage down before the performance, and I mean nothing.

I am still better than lots of players.

Know that every time you feel weak, you not only hurt yourself but also the cause. Infinite faith and strength are the only conditions of success.

Many of the old masters of watercolour painted from notes, with enthusiasm either unabated or renewed. It is hard to assume the same degree of concentration in the studio, but not impossible.

It is a pity, in my opinion, that no prize exists for the writer who best refrains from adding to the world's bad books.