Nicknames are potent ways of cutting people down to size.

I hate Iran. I hate the Iranian government. It's a cruel and evil government.

Anna was saying to herself: why do I always have this awful need to make other people see things as I do? It's childish, why should they? What it amounts to is that I'm scared of being alone in what I feel.

You have to be grown up, really grown up, not merely in years, to understand your parents.

You know, when I was a girl, the idea that the British Empire could ever end was absolutely inconceivable. And it just disappeared, like all the other empires.

Free women," said Anna, wryly. She added, with an anger new to Molly, so that she earned another quick scrutinizing glance from her friend: "They still define us in terms of relationships with men, even the best of them.

When there's a war, people get married.