Sylvia loved secrets and even if she didn't have any secrets she made sure that you thought she did. Amelia had no secrets, Amelia knew nothing. When she grew up she planned to know everything and to...
Sometimes you wondered why anyone bothered crawling out of the cradle when what lay ahead was so darn difficult.
Sometimes Teddy wondered if everyone had done well out of the war except for those who had fought in it.
Some people spend their whole lives looking for themselves, yet our self is the one thing we surely cannot lose (how like a cheap philosopher I am become, staying in this benighted place). From the mo...
So, what do they pay you for...exactly?Slapped around. Tied up. Beaten. Given orders, made to do things.What kind of things?You know.No, I can't even begin to imagine.Lick my boots, crawl on floor, ea...
Shropshire, the fatlands of Gloucestershire,
She should have done science, not spent all her time with her head in novels. Novels gave you a completely false idea about life, they told lies and they implied there were endings when in reality the...
She opened her arms to the black bat and they flew to each other, embracing in the air like long-lost souls. This is love, Ursula thought. And the practice of it makes it perfect.
She had taken an almost instant dislike to him over a dinner at Nopi which, when the bill arrived, he had been more than happy to go Dutch on, thereby failing one of her first requirements of a suitor...
She had never been without a book for as long as she could remember. An only child never is. Literature had fuelled her childhood fantasies and convinced her that one day she would be the heroine of h...
Patricia embraces me on the station platform. 'The past is what you leave behind in life, Ruby,' she says with the smile of a reincarnated lama. 'Nonsense, Patricia,' I tell her as I climb on board my...
One’s own life seemed puny against the background of so much history.
No point in thinking, you just have to get on with life. We only have one after all, we should try and do our best. We can never get it right, but we must try.
Nancy fell in love with Viola at first sight of her. A coup de foudre, she said, more intense and overwhelming than any form of romantic love. Mother and daughter were each a world to the other, compl...
Most people muddled through events and only in retrospect realized their significance.
Literature had fuelled her childhood fantasies and convinced her that one day she would be the heroine of her own narrative.
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage.
Juliet sighed and wondered if one day she would think herself to death. Was that possible? And would it be painful?
Jennifer had never liked the pain of remembering what had happened, but for Theo it was the pain that kept Laura alive in his memory. He was afraid that if it ever began to heal she would disappear.
It wasn't fair, he thought peevishly. Who said life was fair? his father had said to him a hundred times. He had said the same himself to his own daughter. (It's not fair, Daddy.) Parents were miserab...