She didn't give George any too easy a time when she was alive. She was one of those semi-invalids – I believe she had really something wrong with her, but whatever it was she played it for all it was worth. She was capricious, exacting, unreasonable. She complained from morning to night. George was expected to wait on her, hand and foot and everything he did was always wrong and he got cursed for it. Most men, I'm fully convinced, would have hit her with a hatchet long ago.

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

It's very inconvenient to be loved. Nearly everyone has found that out, sooner or later. The fewer people who love you the less you will have to suffer.

Unless you are good at guessing, it is not much use being a detective.

I always take abroad with me one really good soft pillow--to me it makes all the difference between comfort and misery.

In old days the public didn't really mind much about accuracy, but nowadays readers take it upon themselves to write to authors on every possible occasion, pointing out flaws.

marriage is an extraordinary thing - and I doubt if any outsider - even a child of the marriage - has the right to judge.