Here was an occasion, she thought, for indulging in that deliberate rudeness which only persons with habitually good manners have the right to commit.

On the whole, Flora liked it better when they were silent, though it did rather give her the feeling that she was acting in one of the less cheerful German highbrow films.

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.

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

Happiness can never hope to command so much interest as distress.

I saw something nasty in the woodshed.

Well, when I am fifty-three or so I would like to write a novel as good as Persuasion but with a modern setting, of course. For the next thirty years or so I shall be collecting material for it. If anyone asks me what I work at, I shall say, 'Collecting material'. No one can object to that.