She liked Victorian novels. They were the only kind of novel you could read while eating an apple.

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.

Surely she had endured enough for one evening without having to listen to intelligent conversation?

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.

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

One of the disadvantages of almost universal education was the fact that all kinds of persons acquired a familiarity with one's favorite writers. It gave one a curious feeling; it was like seeing a drunken stranger wrapped in one's dressing gown.

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