Perhaps what you call conventionality, I call decency.

The family - that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to.

I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring.

Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.

Time takes the ugliness and horror out of death and turns it into beauty.

What is it about the English countryside — why is the beauty so much more than visual? Why does it touch one so?

Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing.

It's a beautiful sight to see good dancers doing simple steps. It's a painful sight to see beginners doing complicated patterns.

Ham with mustard is a meal of glory

Like many other much-loved humans, they believed that they owned their dogs, instead of realizing that their dogs owned them.

I suppose the best kind of spring morning is the best weather God has to offer.

You have as much laughter as you have faith.

I'm crying again. I cry so often now that sometimes I don't even realize it until the tears are already streaming down my cheeks.

Man who is at the edge of a precipice has always a better chance to understand the universe than a man who is far away from that precipice!

Walk away from gossip and verbal defamation. Speak only the good you know of other people and encourage others to do the same.

I gazed up at the stars as I waited. They twinkled down at me, like a huge handful of diamonds someone had coated in glue and thrown on the ceiling.

Revenge is never the answer

There is no dangerous path for the water

The worst days of darkness through which I have ever passed have been greatly alleviated by throwing myself with all my energy into some work relating to others.

What they forget is that, from Ancient Greece on, the people who returned from battle were either dead on their shields or stronger, despite and because of their scars.

I'm encouraging these women, like Cheryl Strayed, to take the jump to writing for the screen. She is adapting her book Tiny Beautiful Things for us. They're infinitely capable of tackling the format.