Sublime

Patrick Leigh Fermor would be quite high on any list, starting with The Traveller’s Tree, a wonderful book about the Caribbean, absolutely splendid. Everything he does, he has a sort of magic touch with. And I think Evelyn Waugh is very observant, very funny. I’ve read his books more than once.

He grew more and more enamoured of his own beauty, more and more interested in the corruption of his own soul.

Nothing now in the weeds and litter to interest her, and her whole life consisting of her own disappointment: helpless against the arrival of her bad temper, she kicked a crushed Red Stripe can at her feet.

Pullings pointed out the principal charms of the island: Holdfast Tom, Stone Top, and Old Joan Point – he had landed several times, and he did wish he could show the Doctor the bird that haunted Diana’s Peak, a cross between an owl and a poll-parrot, with a curious bill.

A variety of other wise saws sprang to Stephen’s indignant mind – words and feathers are carried off by the wind; as is the wedding, so is the cake; do not speak Arabic in the house of the Moor; pleasures pass but sorrows stay; love, grief and money cannot be concealed