“mrs. McGinty’s dead..how did she die?down on one knee..just like Imrs. McGinty’s dead..how did she die?holding her hand out..just like Imrs. McGinty’s dead.. how did she die?sticking her neck out..just like I”

“The point is that one's got an instinct to live. One does not live because one's reason assents to living. People who, as we say, 'would be better dead,' don’t want to die! People who apparently have got everything to live for just let themselves fade out of life because they have not got the energy to fight.”

“They all fuss about me so,” she said. “They rub it in that I’m an old woman.”“And you don’t feel like one.”“No, I don’t, Jane. In spite of all my aches and pains–and I’ve got plenty. Inside I go on feeling just like a chit like Gina. Perhaps everyone does. The glass shows them how old they are and they just don’t believe it.”

“She looked at nobody, but just before she went out, she raised her eyes and took a speedy glance at me. There was something in that looks that startled me - though it was difficult to describe why. There was malice in it, and a curious intimate knowledge. I felt that, without effort, and almost without curiosity, she had known exactly what thoughts were in my mind.”

“Heather Badcock meant no harm. She never did mean harm, but there is no doubt that people like Heather Badcock (and like my old friend Alison Wilde), are capable of doing a lot of harm because they lack - not kindness, they have kindness - but any real consideration for the way their actions may affect other people. She though always of what an action meant to her, never sparing a thought to what it might mean to somebody else.”

“Why shouldn't I hate her? She did the worst thing to me that anyone can do to anyone else. Let them believe that they're loved and wanted and then show them that it's all a sham.”

“Very unfortunately, she had no husband. She had never had a husband, and therefore did not kill a husband.”