Sometimes you simply need to know when to stop and move on. This is not the same as giving up on a project by a long way, but something we learn when a particular thing we have concentrated a good deal of time on becomes a wearying prospect, when we feel depressed to see those…

One of the saddest things I have seen over many years is a person struggling to fit into an ideal he or she has been told is right for them, and not realising that their destiny is their own and not that foretold by someone else. They fight to get the right clothing, to speak…

I am reliably informed, as strange as I find it, that there are some people out there who fall down and give up at the first obstacle, who do not know how to find a way around it, over it, through it because they have never been told that someone can do something for themselves….

All good things come to an end, they say and, fortunately, all bad things tend to come to an end too, even if this small piece of wisdom is not put across in the same way. For some reason we, as a society, tend to dwell more on the downside of life, and not rejoice…

I am told there are certain rules about what is correct, when writing a letter to someone, and what is unacceptable. I am told that letters should have a certain format; that they should be on a specific size of paper; that the envelope should be addressed in a certain manner, with a return address…

It seems to me as if, with the dawn of each new day, I begin something new. I’m not sure whether this thought has a name – optimism, perhaps – but it is not something that everyone has or feels as they open their eyes and realise, to their surprise or gratitude, that they are…

It doesn’t take the mind of a rocket scientist to discover one of the saddest facts of life: some of those people around us, those we trust and rely upon, do not necessarily have more than their own interests at heart, and most certainly not ours. We get to see such people every single day,…

It is rare to find someone with an interest in history and quotations, unless you restrict your search to the colleges and universities which litter our various lands, and the hidden recesses of libraries and archives within their deepest shadows. We tend to think of a historian – and often librarians too – as old…

There is a strange thing about being creative, as your profile says that you are, which many people seem to misunderstand. There is a belief that being creative means a person goes into art, paints or draws, writes books, short stories or even whimsical poems and, perhaps, even leads a Bohemian lifestyle. Naturally, that last…

I was one of those strange children, many years ago, who did not want to grow up, who did not rue the slowness of time and certainly wasn’t looking forward to being a teenager enjoying all the supposed freedoms of age and life. Rather, I took a very critical view of the passage of time…