Children can spot pomposity, insincerity and self-regard a mile off and are the best possible antidote to such diseases.

I had trouble listening to adults who didn't really mean anything that they said; it was as if their language poured into my ears only to drain right out a little spigot in the back of my head.

The worst fault of the working classes is telling their children they're not going to succeed, saying: ''There is life, but it's not for you.''

All the flower children were as alike as a congress of accountants and about as interesting.

The worst fault of the working classes is telling their children they're not going to succeed.

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.