The family - that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to.

Perhaps watching someone you love suffer can teach you even more than suffering yourself can.

I wanted so terribly to be good to him.

a loss of sensibility follows a loss of innocence, at once a penalty and a compensation.

...I have noticed that when things happen in one's imaginings, they never happen in one's life, so I am curbing myself.

And no bathroom on earth will make up for marrying a bearded man you hate.

I'm convinced England's overflowing with eccentric people, places, happenings. Indeed, you might say eccentricity's normal in England.