This, I thought, is what is meant by 'thy will be done' in the Lord's Prayer, which I had prayed time and again without thinking about it. It means that your will and God's will may not be the same. It means there's a good possibility that you won't get what you pray for. It means that in spite of your prayers you are going to suffer.

The latest technology is not always good for anything except to the producers of the technology.

The primary motive for good care and good use of the land-community is always going to be affection, which is too often lacking.

We learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent question of the time: How much is enough?

If I was freer than I had ever been in my life, I was not yet entirely free, for I still hung on to an idea that had been set deep in me by all my schooling so far: I was a bright boy and I ought to make something out of myself... something else that would be a cut or two above my humble origins.