“At any rate it seems unlikely that there is any truth in the rumour as I have just this moment invented it.”

“You should tell the truth as often as you can, but in such a way as people don't believe you or think that you're being funny.”

“There are many Welsh who are taciturn, truthful, well formed, open minded, handsome and peaceful, even if no particular individual immediately springs to mind.”

“At the Serima Mission, in Victoria Province, I am shown around by an enchantingly pretty African nun called Sister Balbina...She cannot be more than 25, and has the most delightful figure. How poignant that she should have dedicated her life in this way.When we come to the bell tower, I ask her to climb up the ladder in front of me.It was rather a caddish request, I suppose, but I had often wondered. Black petticoats and pink knickers. To think I had to come all this way to find out.”

“Unless people are prepared to declare themselves your enemies you have to hunt around for them.”

“It is just a lonely certainty that we are right and everybody else wrong, which makes it worthwhile for us busy-bodies to go on making a nuisance of ourselves. Our job is to keep both the simple Philistine and the greedy rich in their places, to prevent them, in their stupidity and avarice, from destroying everything that is left.”

“My own attitude to the innumerable injustices of life has always been a philosophical one, especially when they have tended to operate in my favour.”