There is probably an innate masochism in a lot of women that ends up disappointed if men don't ill-treat them.

I have never got on with the quietist movements: they lapse too easily into self-congratulations: I have found the oneness, you have not. I prefer to look outside myself if I possibly can, not inside. Meditation reminds me too forcibly of being made to lie on a mat at nursery school and take an hour's nap.

A woman's body works as if it knew something she didn't, and does not have her best interests at heart. If you need to look your best it will deliver you a pimple; if you don't want it to, your period will start early; if you want a baby badly your body refuses to give you one; if you are content in your life, lo, you are pregnant.

Poverty is a stubborn thing: you seldom escape it with one bound.

No one should be allowed to give back the gift of life, unless they are very old and full of tears, when the body outlives the spirit, when they should be allowed to join the others who've already gone.

There was no such thing as defeat if you didn't accept it.

People fail you, children disappoint you, thieves break in, moths corrupt, but an Order of the British Empire goes on for ever.