I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others to do… — William Somerset Maugham

She plunged into a sea of platitudes, and with the powerful breast stroke of a channel swimmer made her confident way towards the white cliffs of the obvious.

There is no object to life. To nature nothing matters but the continuation of the species.

In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time.