In America every woman has her set of girl-friends; some are cousins, the rest are gained at school. These form a permanent committee who sit on each other's affairs, who come out together, marry and divorce together, and who end as those groups of bustling, heartless well-informed club-women who govern society. Against them the Couple of Ehepaar is helpless and Man in their eyes but a biological interlude.

It is a mistake to expect good work from expatriates for it is not what they do that matters but what they are not doing.

When young we are faithful to individuals, when older we grow loyal to situations and to types.

We may assume that we keep people waiting symbolically because we do not wish to see them and that our anxiety is due not to being late, but to having to see them at all.

There is no pain equal to that which two lovers can inflict on one another.

Promise is the capacity for letting people down.

No one over thirty-five is worth meeting who has not something to teach us, something more than we could learn for ourselves, from a book.