Why shouldn't I hate her? She did the worst thing to me that anyone can do to anyone else. Let them believe that they're loved and wanted and then show them that it's all a sham.

If anyone is really determined to lend you a book, you never can get out of it!

Mr. Jesmond made a peculiar noise rather like a hen who has decided to lay an egg and then thought better of it.

That was what, ultimately, war did to you. It was not the physical dangers--the mines at sea, the bombs from the air, the crisp ping of a rifle bullet as you drove over a desert track. No, it was the spiritual danger of learning how much easier life was if you ceased to think.

Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it.

Words are such uncertain things, they so often sound well but mean the opposite of what one thinks they do.

Very unfortunately, she had no husband. She had never had a husband, and therefore did not kill a husband.