One can never be sure whether a very early memory is a real memory or just the recollection of something which you were told happened.

When I was three, my father was three. When I was six, he was six... he needed me to escape from being 50.

My father did not drink beer. He said he didn't like the taste, and I was prepared to accept that I wouldn't like the taste either. So I stuck to bottled cider.

In pessimistic moments, when I was trudging London in search of an employer wanting to make use of such talents as I could offer, it seemed to me, almost, that my father had got to where he was by climbing upon my infant shoulders, that he had filched from me my good name and had left me with nothing but the empty fame of being his son.