“Great poetry is capable of dealing with erotic passion, but it has to be the very greatest to represent that deeper and more tortuous love -- more rooted, more absolute -- which we devote to our children, and which it is so hard to talk about.”

“We are so overwhelmed with quantities of books, that we hardly realize any more that a book can be valuable, valuable like a jewel, or a lovely picture, into which you can look deeper and deeper and get a more profound experience very time. It is far, far better to read one book six times, at intervals, than to read six several books.”

“I'm interested in the way in which the past affects the present and I think that if we understand a good deal more about history, we automatically understand a great more about contemporary life.”

“Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.”

“We both saw on the cruise how one of the very diamonds they brag about tore your parents apart. It brought the end of love, and forever has no end. But I think of our love, Bella, and our love is unbreakable. Our love is stronger than the hardest stones and more beautiful than the greatest jewels. Our love is worth more than infinite wealth and more precious than the rarest gemstones. Our love is superior to diamonds, the greatest treasure known to man.”

“The increase of knowledge has forcedthe thinker to specialise, with the result that there is nobody capable to deal with civilisation as a whole. We are playing a game of chess in which nobody can see more than two or three squares at once, and so it has become impossible to form a coherent plan.”