“Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.”

“One doesn't have an agreement to that effect written down on parchment and sealed; but it is as well understood and ought to be as faithfully kept as any legal contract.”

“The Tale of Genji in particular is the highest pinnacle of Japanese literature. Even down to our day there has not been a piece of fiction to compare with it. That such a modern work should have been written in the eleventh century is a miracle, and as a miracle the work is widely known abroad.”

“All girls should have a poem
written for them even if
we have to turn this God-damn world
upside down to do it.”

“Brisk and prompt to war, soft and not in the least able to resist calamity, fickle in catching at schemes, and always striving after novelties – French characteristics remained unaltered twenty centuries after Julius Caesar made a note of them for all time.”

“Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.”

“Pro-European is who we are and who we have always been. Our members are Remain. Our values are Remain. Our hearts are Remain.”

“Insofar as I have written a self-help book, it is a how-to manual for receptivity: a description of how to tolerate what cannot be cured, and an argument that cures are not always appropriate even when they are feasible.”

“More than all the thoughts and feelings I have written down. I don't pretend to be a poet. I feel happy enough when someone is willing to read what I have written.”

“Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today.”