“I play the piano passionately and inaccurately. Indeed, I worked out the other day that of my seventy-five years; I have spent at least one year sitting on a piano stool.”

Of the authors writing in English, I’d mention Shakespeare and Milton. But all this is terribly high-hat and makes me sound very po-faced, I’m afraid; however, I just happen to like these enormous, swinging, great creatures.

There is, they say, no fool like an old fool.

Maybe there is a beast… maybe it’s only us.

There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws.

His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon it, taken away its life like a long satisfying drink.

Life should serve up its feast of experience in a series of courses.

It may be — I hope it is — redemption to guess and perhaps perceive that the universe, the hell which we see for all its beauty, vastness, majesty, is only part of a whole which is quite unimaginable.

This is our island. It’s a good island. Until the grownups come to fetch us we’ll have fun.

The beast was harmless and horrible; and the news must reach the others as soon as possible.

And I’ve been wearing specs since I was three.

He who rides the sea of the Nile must have sails woven of patience.

I began to see what people were capable of doing. Anyone who moved through those years without understanding that man produces evil as a bee produces honey, must have been blind or wrong in the head.

Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind’s essential illness.

One tries to tell a truth, and one hopes that the truth has a general application rather than just a specific one.

Sleep is when all the unsorted stuff comes flying out as from a dustbin upset in a high wind.

Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!

It means much to have loved, to have been happy, to have laid my hand on the living Garden, even for a day.

A new day is here. Yesterday is a memory. Tomorrow is unknown. Now is the knowing.

A good practice is to ask yourself very sincerely, ‘Why was I born?’ Ask yourself this question in the morning, in the afternoon, and at night…every day.

The world is a Bridge, pass over it, but build no houses upon it. He who hopes for a day, may hope for eternit.

If we only make merit but have not stopped doing bad things, then we will never have a day of completion. It is like an overturned bowl which is left outside in the rain.

I touch it and it rings! One day the wind may blow it off the shelf, or my elbow may knock it from the table.

You can’t measure time by days, the way you measure money by dollars and cents, because dollars are all the same while every day is different and maybe every hour as well.

You feel impacted by not having it. It’s an important part of your daily function and what you can do in a day.