Novel writing is a kind of private pleasure, even if nothing comes of it in worldly terms.

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 pulled myself up and told myself to stop these ridiculous thoughts, wondering why it is that we can never stop trying to analyse the motives of people who have no personal interest in us, in the vain hope of finding that perhaps they may have just a little after all.

She had always been an unashamed reader of novels.

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.

It was odd how one found oneself making trivial conversation on important occasions. Perhaps it was because one could not say what was really in one's mind.

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