“To begin with, it’s true, she read with trepidation and some unease.”

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.

Of course my standards are out of date! That’s why they’re called standards.

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.

Books generally just confirm you in what you have, perhaps unwittingly, decided to do already.

The liturgy is best treated and read as if it’s someone announcing the departure of trains.

Only as we mature does affection begin to depend on achievement.

Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.

I`m very cautious about what appears to be things put in place that will begin to roll back some of the progress that I believe we`ve made.

I was just thrilled to get the gig to begin with. Ten years later to still have it is not only thrilling but also somewhat of a puzzlement.

When I start on a film I always have a number of ideas about my project. Then one of them begins to germinate, to sprout, and it is this, which I take and work with.

Let me begin by saying not only you can’t have democracy with $75 million. You can’t even have it with $750 billion.

I was president then. I’m not president now. When I said it, this would be a sign of goodwill to begin the talks.

When you begin to become conscious, more aware, when your eyes begin to open, the first thing you see is how deluded you are and how much you’re holding onto that which makes you suffer. This is, in many ways, the most important step: Are you willing to be aware?