Mirabelle sat down, dropping into the cushions like a ball being caught in a large leather glove.

Jack had been the love of her life and he was gone. It seemed now that there had never been bad times, though she knew that wasn’t true.

Vesta was so good with paperwork – you could hand her a file of drab, seemingly dull information and she’d construct a story from it worthy of a novel.

Didn’t young people care what the generation before them had achieved? And if not, why had everyone gone through those grim difficult wartime years?

It was nearly ten years since the peace though her memories of the war still felt fresh.

Covert operations relied on the unguarded slip, the unconscious choosing of one word over another.

The good thing about the aristocracy – German or English – was that they were easily traced, Mirabelle thought.

This investigation felt difficult, like driving in fog.

Mirabelle was always an enigma, and he had the sense that if he pushed her, she’d bolt.

Food in wartime Britain, she had to admit, was hardly inspiring.

A chap’s impending death has a way of focusing the mind.

A new universe is born whenever a new baby is born.

Being negative only makes a difficult journey more difficult. You may be given a cactus, but you don't have to sit on it.

Refuse to seek for the road to paradise, because every beautiful place is already a paradise!

I admire sensible, kind people. They're not often famous.

The historic ascent of humanity, taken as a whole, may be summarized as a succession of victories of consciousness over blind forces - in nature, in society, in man himself.

Eventually, you have to stop picking a fight with your true nature and decide to seek the joy that underlies it all.

I was too dumb to know Opie was going to grow up to be a great Director, if so, boy, I would certainly have become his best friend.

Tupac was just so passionate about what he believes in and not afraid to say anything.

Paparazzi always made me really uncomfortable.

I try to look for the good in everybody, regardless of the way they're labeled.