“Some local boys come in and there is a bit of chat between them and the fish-fryer about whether the kestrel under the counter is for sale.”

But most men regard their life as a poem that women threaten.

Above literature?’ said the Queen. ‘Who is above literature? You might as well say one was above humanity.

One of the hardest things for a teacher to learn is not to try and tell them.

One of the hardest things for boys to learn is that a teacher is human.

Soft Left, Hard Right, Soft Right and Centre. I am not listed. I should probably come under Soft Centre.

The masters had no idea what was expected of you in the scholarship exam, so you just had to busk it really.

Knowing as their own dusk falls that they will only be remembered for remembering someone else.

Far from wanting time to pass, one just wishes one had more of it. If one wanted to pass the time one could go to New Zealand.

It was the kind of library he had only read about in books.

A bookshelf is as particular to its owner as are his or her clothes; a personality is stamped on a library just as a shoe is shaped by the foot.

In the way of circumstances and background to transcend I had everything an artist could possibly want. It was practically a blueprint.

Life is generally something that happens elsewhere.

I’m all in favour of free expression provided it’s kept rigidly under control.

Our perspective on the past alters. Looking back, immediately in front of us is dead ground.

It [Cambridge] wasn’t a holy grail in the sense that I’d never been to Cambridge.

Had your forefathers, Wigglesworth, been as stupid as you are, the human race would never have succeeded in procreating itself.

I cannot unravel the difference between love in my family and the preparation of food because they are so closely woven.

God put a cross between you and hell. If you want to go to hell, you will have to crawl over the cross of Jesus.

If I put things between me and Christ, it is idolatry. If I put Christ between me and things, it is victory!

The contrasts between the haves and have-nots is so complicated.

It’s sort of a combination between that and having the foundation that my mother gave me.

I think it’s important that we run that tension between the way things are.

It is one thing to believe in justification by faith.

This contest between the secular and religious visions of government is really the main choice to be made