“That is how we lived, happily and without hope. I was very young then, and I did not miss having a future because I did not know I was entitled to one.”

“Miss Prism: Do not speak slightingly of the three-volume novel, Cecily. I wrote one myself in earlier days. Cecily: Did you really, Miss Prism? How wonderfully clever you are! I hope it did not end happily? I don't like novels that end happily. They depress me so much. Miss Prism: The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.”

“I hope it did not end happily? I don't like novels that end happily. They depress me so much.”

“And will I tell you that these three lived happily ever after? I will not, for no one ever does. But there was happiness. And they did live.”

“Ah, my poor child, how far gone you are in your blindness! Why did you have me summoned?""I had hopes, I had hopes.""Hopes? Hopes of what?""I do not know. The things we hope for are always the things we do not know.”

“How fortunate we were who still had hope I did not then realise; I could not know how soon the time would come when we should have no more hope, and yet be unable to die”