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As animals, we walk the earth. As bearers of divine essence, we are among the stars. As human beings, we are caught in the middle, seeking to reconcile the paradox of how to make our way upon earth while striving for something more permanent and more profound.

When we free ourselves from physical disabilities, emotional disturbances, and mental distractions, we open the gates to our soul.

I was propelled, of course, by the traditional forces that had sent many generations along this road - by the small tight valley closing in around one, stifling the breath with its mossy mouth, the cottage walls narrowing like the arms of an iron maiden, the local girls whispering, ‘Marry, and settle down.’

Now we go off to the office and come home in the evenings to cheap chicken and frozen peas. Very nice, but too much of it, too easy and regular, served up without effort or wanting. We eat, we are lucky, our faces are shining with fat, but we don't know the pleasure of being hungry any more.

Love is also disquiet, the brooding pleasures of doubt, midnights wasted by speculation, the frantic dance round the significance of the last thing she said, the need to see her to have life confirmed.

The last days of my childhood were also the last days of the village.  I belonged to that generation which saw, by chance, the end of a thousand years' life.

Charm is the ultimate weapon, the supreme seduction, against which there are few defences.  If you've got it, you need almost nothing else, neither money, looks, nor pedigree.  It's a gift, only to be given away, and the more used the more there is.  It is also a climate of behaviour set for the perpetual summer and thermostatically controlled by taste and tact.

It is a long time now since I knew that acute moment of bliss that comes from putting parched lips to a cup of cold water. The springs are still there to be enjoyed - all one needs is the original thirst.

She is of course just an ordinary miracle, but is also the particular late wonder of my life.

For years I have lived in the flats, rooms and garrets of this city, the drawers in the human filing-cabinets that stand in blank rows down the streets of Kensington and Notting Hill.  Yet when I talk of home I think of that damp green valley near Stroud where I was brought up.  The boys I went to school with have long since grown and fattened, got married and gone bald, and they would probably have to give me a very long look before they recognized me if I turned up there again.  But that is my home, and the image of it the day I left it is still more real to me than long years in this crowded capital city.

In the armoury of man, charm is the enchanted dart, light and subtle as a hummingbird. But it is deceptive in one thing - like a sense of humour, if you think you've got it, you probably haven't.

She [Lee’s mother] was muddled and mischievous as a chimney-jackdaw, she made her nest of rags and jewels, was happy in the sunlight, squawked loudly at danger, pried and was insatiably curious, forgot when to eat or ate all day, and sang when sunsets were red.  She lived the easy laws of the hedgerow, loved the world and made no plans, had a quick holy eye for natural wonders and couldn’t have kept a neat house for her life.