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

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.

Oh, this coming back to an empty house,' Rupert thought, when he had seen her safely up to her door. People - though perhaps it was only women - seemed to make so much of it. As if life itself were not as empty as the house one was coming back to.

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

The burden of keeping three people in toilet paper seemed to me rather a heavy one.

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.