"I started with the firm conviction that when I came to the end, I wanted to be regretting the things that I had done, not the things I hadn't."

"Books were my window on the world. Growing up at the Elephant and Castle, which was very rough, my paradise was the library."

"Growing up, there was only classical music on BBC Radio. We had to listen to the American Forces Network in Germany, which played pop songs, or the pirate radio boats off the coast."

"To me, growing old is great. It's the very best thing - considering the alternative."

"Love is the bridge that unites two souls across the chasms of mortal solitude. This remains the cornerstone of personal mastery."

"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live."

"ambition, n. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead."

"Peace of heart is the greatest luxury life can bestow upon the mortal traveler. For where clarity resides, peace inevitably follows — an essential principle for the reflective life."