“It was easy, terribly easy, to become with time a middle-aged spinster with a sharp tongue. She would have to guard against this.”

“And she, Isabel, had gone along with this and all the time what was happening was she was becoming increasingly possessive of Jamie without ever having to acknowledge it. Now there was another woman, a girl really, and there was an obvious intimacy between them, which would exclude her as it would have to do, and that would be the end of everything.”

“It was just too easy to say that adults did not like stories that were simple, and perhaps that was wrong. Perhaps that was what adults really wanted, searched for and rarely found: a simple story in which good triumphs against cynicism and dispair. That was what she wanted, but she was aware of the fact that one did not publicise the fact too widely, certainly not in sophisticated circles. Such circles wanted complexity, dysfunction and irony: there was no room for joy, celebration or pathos. But where was the FUN in that?”

“Now constipation was quite a different matter...It would be dreadful for the whole world to know about troubles of that nature. She felt terribly sorry for people who suffered from constipation, and she knew that there were many who did. There were probably enough of them for a political party - with a chance of government perhaps - but what would such a party do if it was in power? Nothing, she imagined. It would try to pass legislation, but would fail." (p, 195)”

“If she was going to remain an engaged lady, then she would make the most of it, and one of the ways to do this would be to enjoy her free time.”

“It was easy to be moral when that was the way you felt anyway. The hard bit about morality was making yourself feel the opposite of what you really felt.”

“It's really rather easy to write eighth-century Chinese poetry," said Angus Lordie. "In English, of course. It requires little effort, I find.”