There are various ways of mending a broken heart, but perhaps going to a learned conference is one of the more unusual.

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

There are some things too dreadful to be revealed, and it is even more dreadful how, in spite of our better instincts,we long to know about them.

I imagine the proverb about too many cooks spoiling the broth can be applied to writing as well as anything else. The poetical or literary broth is better cooked by one person.

Life is cruel and we do terrible things to each other.

My thoughts went round and round and it occurred to me that if I ever wrote a novel it would be of the 'stream of consciousness' type and deal with an hour in the life of a woman at the sink.

She had always been an unashamed reader of novels.