While I was still a boy, I came to the conclusion that there were three grades of thinking; and since I was later to claim thinking as my hobby, I came to an even stranger conclusion - namely, that I myself could not think at all.
My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are gray faces that peer over my shoulder.
A novel ensures that we can look before and after, take action at whatever pace we choose, read again and again, skip and go back. The story in a book is humble and serviceable, available, friendly, is not switched on and off but taken up and put down, lasts a lifetime.
If you... scaled down human beings, scaled down society, if you land with a group of little boys, they are more like a scaled-down version of society than a group of little girls would be.
He who rides the sea of the Nile must have sails woven of patience.
We've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages. We're English, and the English are best at everything.
Childhood is a disease - a sickness that you grow out of.
