“I am but too conscious of the fact that we are born in an age when only the dull are treated seriously, and I live in terror of not being misunderstood. Don't degrade me into the position of giving you useful information. Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”

“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”

“I know only that it is time for me to be something when I am nothing.”

“I only know I was born on March 5th because someone told me. I don’t remember myself. So it’s fact based on secondhand information and trust.”

“While we were together, you know, there was nothing to be feared...The only time that I ever really suffered in body or mid, the only time that I ever fancied myself unwell, or had any ideas of danger, was the winter that I passed by myself at Deal, when the Admiral (Captain Croft then) was in the North Seas. I lived in perpetual fright at that time, and had all manner of imaginary complaints from not knowing what to do with myself, or when I should hear from him next; but as long as we could be together, nothing ever ailed me, and I never met with the smallest inconvenience.”

“But today when I am 17 and warm and well fed, I'm keeping this journal for myself so I can always remember life as we knew it, life as we know it, for a time when I am no longer in the sunroom.”