She had always been an unashamed reader of novels.

How absurd and delicious it is to be in love with somebody younger than yourself. Everybody should try it.

Of course it's all right for librarians to smell of drink.

I love Evensong. There's something sad and essentially English about it.

The burden of keeping three people in toilet paper seemed to me rather a heavy one.

My thoughts went round and round and it occurred to me that if I ever wrote a novel it would be of the 'stream of consciousness' type and deal with an hour in the life of a woman at the sink.

I was so astonished that I could think of nothing to say, but wondered irrelevantly if I was to be caught with a teapot in my hand on every dramatic occasion.

There are no sick people in North Oxford. They are either dead or alive. It's sometimes difficult to tell the difference, that's all.

There are various ways of mending a broken heart, but perhaps going to a learned conference is one of the more unusual.

There are some things too dreadful to be revealed, and it is even more dreadful how, in spite of our better instincts,we long to know about them.

Life is cruel and we do terrible things to each other.

A marriage filled with unconditional love experiences the depth of grace and mercy.

The tadpole poet will never grow into anything bigger than a frog.

Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a better past.

Love's greatest miracle is the curing of coquetry.

There is no hell. There is only France.

[W]ithout humour you cannot run a sweetie-shop, let alone a nation.

My experience with Sondheim has been nothing but glorious, especially for a guy who doesn't sing.

Vision makes the difference for your future.

My father was a very unhappy person, very sarcastic, and my mother was very nervous and worried about what people thought. They weren't monsters, but it wasn't a good childhood.

Concession comes with better grace and more salutary effect from superior power.