I'm a library user and I just don't hoard books. To me, they're for sharing.

At length, when I considered it, I realized that the best of my actions were small things. Picking flowers and cooking food for my mother when she had been unwell, spending an afternoon with the children, sending money to my sister or kissing Henry's tiny head as he slept in the nursery before I left. I thought of every detail and afterwards I felt better. Hellfire and brimstone have never appealed to me and I admit I become easily confused thinking of right and wrong. But I do understand kindness.

I had loved poetry and the theatre. Now I loved adventure more.

She wishes her grandmother had not been so protective, and that she understood better what passes between a man and woman. As it is, she simply enjoys the feelings and wonders if they are what lightning is made of, for everything comes back to the weather. Tears like rain. Smiles like the sun. Hair as dry as sand and fear like the dark ocean.

While I'm frustrated at the amount I'm expected to take on in the present, the 1950s woman was frustrated by being excluded - not being allowed to take things on at all.

I'm not sure how much easier it is for a mother to balance her life now - have we simply swapped one set of restrictions for another?

The sky was a sparkling succession of black diamonds on black velvet made crystal clear by the blackout.