You must appreciate that love is the last reason for which a man marries.

So many of man's actions appear to have no immediate consequence but, concealed, do their work until finally all catches up and forms a complex web of cause and effect.

No, what Great Aunt Winifred was suffering from was the persecution every happily single woman suffers: the predictable social condemnation of her independence and childlessness. Dorothy reminded herself of what she'd learned during a university course on feminist history (with a strong Marxist slant): spinsters are a threat to patriarchy.

Memory is a great deceiver: it embroiders until naught is left but the glory and the pleasure.

Believe, my child. Faith is the food of survival.

Death strips all men of dignity.

As a reader I like both great characterization and fast moving plots. The challenge is to balance the both and not compromise one for the other.