The first rule of snooping is to come at it sideways.

Have you ever noticed that when your mind is awakened or drawn to someone new, that person's name suddenly pops up everywhere you go? My friend Sophie calls it coincidence, and Mr. Simpless, my parson friend, calls it Grace. He thinks that if one cares deeply about someone or something new one throws a kind of energy out into the world, and "fruitfulness" is drawn in.

Humour is the best way to make the unbearable bearable.

Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers. How delightful if that were true.

Do you suppose the St. Swithin's furnace-man was my one true love? Since I never spoke to him, it seems unlikely, but at least it was a passion unscathed by disappointment.

I don't want to be married just to be married.

We read books, talked books, argued over books and became dearer and dearer to one another.