I admired in others the strength that I lacked myself.

When I was a little boy I did not, of course, trouble much about my appearance.

The war imbued my tin soldiers with quite a new interest. It was impossible to have boxes enough of them.

I was not afraid of what I did not like. To overcome dislike of a thing often satisfied one's feeling of honour.

By the time we hit fifty, we have learned our hardest lessons. We have found out that only a few things are really important. We have learned to take life seriously, but never ourselves.

When you're in love, you've found your soul mate, you think life is going one way, and suddenly it's completely apparent it's not. You have to rethink your whole purpose.

I feel as though there are things that I'm trying to do - you know, capturing truthfully some aspect of human experience - and I'm trying really hard not to be fake. And in writing, as in life, it's harder than you think.

Character is the essence of all that a man has seen in life and regards as high and exalted. Character is like truth: the substance of the things that a man has forgotten but the substance of the things that are worth remembering in life.