Why children?' he asked. 'Why always children? For love to end where it begins is far more beautiful, and Nature knows it.

A happy ending was imperative. I shouldn't have bothered to write otherwise. I was determined that in fiction anyway two men should fall in love and remain in it for the ever and ever that fiction allows, and in this sense, Maurice and Alec still roam the greenwood.

I have almost completed a long novel, but it is unpublishable until my death and England's.

Of course he despised the world as a whole; every thoughtful man should; it is almost a test of refinement.

England has always been disinclined to accept human nature.

The one encouragement we can always give our children (and one another) is that God is more powerful than our sin, and He's strong enough to make us want to do the right thing.