“I’m at that age where I watch such things with two minds.”

One of the marks of a truly great mind, I had discovered, is the ability to feign stupidity on demand.

Although it is pleasant to think about poison at any season, there is something special about Christmas, and I found myself grinning.

Whenever I’m with other people, part of me shrinks a little. Only when I am alone can I fully enjoy my own company.

To be frivolous time-wasters, delighted in putting her favorite volumes into her grandchildren’s hands.

I always knew that I wanted to work on my own material – something that would be more long-lasting than short-lived electronic transmissions.

I had long ago discovered that when a word or formula refused to come to mind the best thing for it was to think of something else: tigers for instance or oatmeal.

And I had long ago become accustomed to being called ‘Ophelia Daphne Flavia, damn it.

It is not unknown for fathers with a brace of daughters to reel off their names in order of birth when summoning the youngest.

I was an early reader, and my grandmother, who as a child had been forbidden to read by a father who believed books.

My grandmother flew only once in her life, and that was the day she and her new husband ascended into the skies of Victorian London in the wicker basket of a hot-air balloon.

Compared with my life Cinderella was a spoiled brat.

I fling myself down on my back, throw my arms and legs out so that I look like an asterisk, and gaze at the sky.

TV and film taught me to think cinematically. Teaching others to edit, for example, provides a great deal of insight into the millions of ways in which given elements can be put together to tell a story.

What intrigued me more than anything else was finding out the way in which everything, all of creation.

Chicken fizz! O Lord, protect all of us who toil in the vineyards of experimental chemistry!

They were soon to emigrate to Canada, and the aerial ride was meant to be a last view of their beloved England.

There is such a thing as too much beauty in a woman and it is often a burden as crippling as homeliness and far more dangerous. It takes much luck and integrity to survive the gift of perfect beauty, and its impermanence is its most cunning betrayal.

I could bear the memory, but I could not bear the music that made the memory such a killing thing.

Oh, you weak, beautiful people who give up with such grace.

Oh you weak, beautiful people who give up with such grace. What you need is someone to take hold of you

Vanity, fear, desire, competition – all such distortions within our own egos – condition our vision of those in relation to us.

One of the many things nobody ever tells you about middle age is that it’s such a nice change from being young.

Why get married? For human beings, marriage is such an unnatural state. If you want monogamy, it has been said, you should marry a swan.

The vision is such that seeing and seen are one; object and act of vision have become identical.