Dulcie always found a public library a little upsetting, for one saw so many odd people there.

I stretched out my hand towards the little bookshelf where I kept cookery and devotional books, the most comfortable bedside reading.

Perhaps I need some shattering experience to awaken and inspire me, or at least to give me some emotion to recollect in tranquility. But how to get it? Sit here and wait for it or go out and seek it? . . . I expect it will be sit and wait.

I was so astonished that I could think of nothing to say, but wondered irrelevantly if I was to be caught with a teapot in my hand on every dramatic occasion.

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

She had always been an unashamed reader of novels.