Make them do as you want them to," she said. "I can’t," mourned Anne. "Averil is such an unmanageable heroine. She will do and say things I never meant her to. Then that spoils everything that went before and I have to write it all over again.

There might be some hours of loneliness. But there was something wonderful even in loneliness. At least you belonged to yourself when you were lonely.

Some nights are like honey - and some like wine - and some like wormwood.

It was less humiliating to admit crying because of your feet than because - because somebody had been amusing himself with you and your friends had forgotten you, and other people patronised you.

I like to hear a storm at night. It is so cosy to snuggle down among the blankets and feel that it can't get at you.

But the worst of imagining things is that the time comes when you have to stop and that hurts.

You must pay the penalty of growing-up, Paul. You must leave fairyland behind you.