Nobody ever warned me about mirrors, so for many years I was fond of them, and believed them to be trustworthy. . .

I wish there was someone I could have written to after that, someone I could have written to explain how awful it was to have someone touch you, then look at you properly and change his mind.

Home is where your teapots are.

I collected pictures and I drew pictures and I looked at the pictures by myself. And because no one else ever saw them, the pictures were perfect and true. They were alive.

The first coffee of the morning is never, ever, ready quickly enough. You die before it’s ready and then your ghost pours the resurrection potion out of the moka pot.

I feel like an old lady; my hero is Miss Marple.

Because things grow. Wherever there is air and light and open space, things grow.

There were days when he touched the tip of her nose and it was enough, a miracle of plenty.

The language of [Catholic] mysticism - its repeated attempts to lay consciousness itself bare and speak all the intensely opposing yet interconnected parts of it that cannot be spoken.

I think, basically, what I'm good for is reading - a lot.

I dont have a style. I just try to write what the story demands.

If words had weight, a single sentence from Death would have anchored a ship.

Though surely to avoid attachments for fear of loss is to avoid life.

A little nonsense now and then Is relished by the wisest men.

Great liars are also great magicians.

If no one else has ever told you this before, I will tell it to you one more time and hope you believe it and never forget it for the rest of your life: You deserve to be treated well.

I mean Buckingham Palace has never hired a professional public relations outfit let alone a Madison Avenue type and they would throw up their hands in horror at the very idea.

Modern definitions of truth, such as those as pragmatism and instrumentalism, which are practical rather than contemplative, are inspired by industrialisation as opposed to aristocracy.

Believe, believe, believe

There is no appeal from the ways of the world, which must continue on its own terms or take us all down with it into chaos and confusion.

If you want to be witty, say what you think at all times