In the woods it was not so much that it was quiet as that the few sounds were loud and distinct, not the orchestra tuning-up of the city but individual grace notes. Birdcalls broken into pieces like a piano exercise, a tree branch snapping sharp and then swishing down and thump on the ground, the hiss of water coming off the mountain.
Silence, Nature
Speech is the voice of the heart.
Heart, Voice
It is the glory of London that it is always ending and beginning anew, and that a visitor, with a good eye and indefatigable feet, will find in her travels all the Londons she has ever met in the pages of books, one atop the other, like the strata of the Earth.
Life, History, London
There is a little boy inside the man who is my brother... Oh, how I hated that little boy. And how I love him too.
Family, Brothers, Siblings
Just remember that sometimes you drift into things, and then you can't get out of them. Not to decide is to decide.
Life Lessons
Your children make it impossible to regret your past. They're its finest fruits. Sometimes the only ones.
Children, Regrets
Behind every door in London there are stories, behind every one ghosts. The greatest writers in the history of the written word have given them substance, given them life.And so we readers walk, and dream, and imagine, in the city where imagination found its great home.
Life, Imagination, Literature
Raging crime, class warfare, invasive immigrants, light morals, public misbehavior. Always we convince ourselves that the parade of unwelcome and despised is a new phenomenon, which is why the phrase "the good old days" has passed from cliché to self-parody.
Self Deception, Society, Prejudice