“But you have read Madame Bovary?' (I'd never heard of her books.) 'No.”

“A book you finish reading is not the same book it was before you read it.”

“A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.”

“After my modest victory I played patience (the card game, not the virtue, never that) in the lounge, something I had not done since my ill-starred Tintagel honeymoon with Madame X.”

“If you’re in your life, chance. Viewed from the outside, like a book you’re reading, it’s fate all the way.”

“escape is never further than the nearest book”

“Mother used to say escape is never further than the nearest book. Well, Mumsy, no, not really. Your beloved large-print sagas of rags, riches, and heartbreak were no camouflage against the miseries trained on you by the tennis ball launcher of life, were they? But, yes, Mum, there again, you have a point. Books don’t offer real escape, but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw.”