I love Evensong. There's something sad and essentially English about it.

What a good thing there is no marriage or giving in marriage in the after-life; it will certainly help to smooth things out.

There are no sick people in North Oxford. They are either dead or alive. It's sometimes difficult to tell the difference, that's all.

Of course it's all right for librarians to smell of drink.

The small things of life were often so much bigger than the great things . . . the trivial pleasure like cooking, one's home, little poems especially sad ones, solitary walks, funny things seen and overheard.

How absurd and delicious it is to be in love with somebody younger than yourself. Everybody should try it.

She had always been an unashamed reader of novels.