To be able to imagine the ohter, and the experience of the other was what wisdome was all about; but nobody talked about wisdom very much anymore, nor virtue perhaps because wisdom was nto appreciated...
Time, she felt, made quite enough claims on us, without our conniving in its relentless tyranny.
Those regularly-featured Hollywood males made her feel slightly nauseous; and the same could be said for their female equivalents, hardly intellectuals they. These people had regular features but were...
They should get another lawyer, he said. Surely there are better people around. That man with the big nose—you know the one—they say that he’s very good. The judges can’t take their eyes off his nose,...
They paid the deposit immediately and appeared to be good tenants although they were reluctant to invite him over the threshold once they had moved in. There is no need for you to come in, he had been...
These sociopaths,' he said. 'What do they feel like? Inside?'Isabel smiled. 'Unmoved,' she said. 'They feel unmoved. Look at a cat when it does something wrong. It looks quite unmoved. Cats are sociop...
There were always such dwellings--the abode of the cook or the man who tended the yard, or the woman who did the washing and ironing; so normal and unexceptionable as to attract no attention, the plac...
There was the Queen, and then there was Seretse Khama and our own people. That is called history, you see. But who asked them here? The aunt shook her head. There are some guests who do not knock. Tha...
There was nothing more unattractive than narcissism, she thought: nothing could transform beauty into a cloying, unattractive quality than that self-conscious appreciation of self.
There is a difference between a challenge and a burden. One is something you can carry on your shoulders easily enough—the other is something, a big sack, that bends you double.
There are some people who start off knowing very little about the world and end up years later knowing even less. Never underestimate the capacity of the human mind for ignorance. Mr. Woodhouse found...
There are many words for push, take, shove, carry, load, and no words for love, or happiness, or the sounds which birds make in the morning.
The whole point about childhood, Domenica went on, is that it affords us a brief moment of innocence and protection from the pressures of the world. Parents who push their children too hard intrude on...
The voices of the children were pure; their hearts were pure. Some of them had already discovered how hard life could be; others had yet to do so and probably did not fully understand what the world c...
The value of money is subjective, depending on age. At the age of one, one multiplies the actual sum by 145,000, making one pound seem like 145,000 pounds to a one-year-old. At seven – Bertie’s age –...
The turtles and birds who lived on the islands were also very friendly, as they hardly ever saw any humans and were always pleased to have some company.
The sun went, and it was dark. He sat beside her in the comfortable darkness and they listened, contentedly, to the sounds of Africa settling down for the night. A dog barked somewhere; a car engine r...
The problem, he thought, was that so much humour involved misfortune of one sort or another, and now that same human misfortune was out of bounds - interdicted by self-appointed guardians of sensitivi...
The physical world—the world of stone and brick—is indifferent to our suffering, to our dramas, she thought. Even a battlefield can be peaceful, can be a place for flowers to grow, for children to pla...
The people too seemed diminished. Her favourite aunt was still her favourite, of course, but whereas she had always been impressed by the wisdom of what her aunt said, now her words seemed no more tha...