“The world under heaven, after a long period of division, tends to unite; after a long period of union, tends to divide. This has been so since antiquity. ”

“It is a general truism of this world that anything long divided will surely unite, and anything long united will surely divide.”

“You may return and tell Sun Quan to wash his neck: the executioner is coming.”

“On and on the Great River rolls, racing east.Of proud and gallant heros its white-tops leave no trace,As right and wrong, pride and fall at once unrealYet ever the green hill stayTo blaze in the west-waning day...”

“There is a remarkable degree of consistency in the way mediaeval literature affirms humanity. With all its faults, humanity emerges as more realistic than heavenly ideals.......Because the mediaeval period is seen from our own times as historically distant, 'behind' the Renaissance with all the changes which that period brought, it has been undervalued for its own debates, developments and changes. The fact that mediaeval times have been revisited, re-imagined and rewritten, especially in the Romantic period, has tended to compound the ideas of difference and distance between this age and what came after. But in many ways the mediaeval period presages the issues and concerns of the Renaissance period and prepares the way for what was to come.”

“I suddenly had an idea of how adults can hold on to a feeling for very long periods of time, long after the event is finished, long after cards have been sent and apologies made and everyone else had moved on. Adults were pack rats of old, useless emotions”

“There are people who stick in one's memory much more clearly after a brief acquaintance than others whom one sees day after day after a long period.”