It's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently or if your favorite films wouldn't even speak to each other if they met at a party.

I'd stay there, or not, and I'd eat, or not, and I'd drink, or not, and go home, or not, and what I did or didn't do wouldn't matter to anyone at all. And I walked for most of the day. Do people get sad on holiday sometimes? I can imagine they do, having all that time to think.

What harm has he ever done to you?' 'You know what harm he's done me. He offended me with his terrible taste.

I don't believe in Heaven or anything. But I want to be the kind of person that qualifies for entry anyway.

Everyone disliked their partners at some time or another, she knew that. But she’d spent her hours in the dark wondering whether she’d ever liked him. Would it really have been so much worse to spend those years alone? Why did there have to be someone else in the room while she was eating, watching TV, sleeping?

Books are, let's face it, better than everything else.

Women who disapprove of men - and there's plenty to disapprove of - should remember how we started out, and how far we had to travel.