Daniele Vare quotes:

He was a specialist in Feng Shui; that is to say, he was consulted as to the correct ubication and orientation of houses and temples, in relation to the spirits of wind and water.

Diplomacy is the art of letting the other party have things your way.

Western funerals: black hearses, and black horses, and fast-fading flowers. Why should black be the colour of death? Why not the colours of a sunset?

The verb 'to darn' is explained in my pocket dictionary as follows: 'To mend by imitating the texture of the stuff, with thread and needle.' But this definition does not correspond to the work accomplished by good Chinese housewives. When they mend a sock, they do not try 'to imitate the texture of the stuff'. Their art makes no attempt at concealment: it even takes a certain pride in revealing itself.