Well,' said Mrs Smiling, 'it sounds an appalling place, but in a different way from all the others. I mean, it does sound interesting and appalling, while the others just sound appalling.

Curious how Love destroys every vestige of that politeness which the human race, in its years of evolution, has so painfully acquired.

I do not object to the phenomena, but I do object to the parrot.

Nature is all very well in her place, but she must not be allowed to make things untidy.

By god, DH Lawrence was right when he said there must be a dumb, dark, dull, bitter belly-tension between a man and a woman, and how else could this be achieved save in the long monotony of marriage?

Dawn crept over the Downs like a sinister white animal, followed by the snarling cries of a wind eating its way between the black boughs of the thorns. The wind was the furious voice of this sluggish animal light that was baring the dormers and mullions and scullions of Cold Comfort Farm.

There are some things (like first love and one’s first reviews) at which a woman in her middle years does not care to look too closely.