Women scheme when they are weak, they lie out of fear. Men scheme when they are strong, they lie out of arrogance.

The next day, when I was sober, I thought again about the three of us, and about time's many paradoxes. For instance: that when we are young and sensitive, we are also at our most hurtful; whereas when the blood begins to slow, when we feel less sharply, when we are more armoured and have learnt how to bear hurt, we tread more carefully.

Women were brought up to believe that men were the answer. They weren't. They weren't even one of the questions.

A pier is a disappointed bridge; yet stare at it for long enough and you can dream it to the other side of the Channel.

we must be precise with love, its language and its gestures. If it is to save us, we must look at it as clearly as we should learn to look at death

Time...give us enough time and our best-supported decisions will seem wobbly, our certainties whimsical.

This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature.