“Barbara wanted to go to tea at Dorchester as much as she wanted to give birth to octuplets.”

“She told me that she did not like the idea of your being in that house all by yourself, and that she thought you took too much strong tea. In fact she wants me to advise you if possible to give up the tea and the very late hours.”

“She wanted to eat my heart and be lost in the desert with what she'd done, she wanted to fall on her knees and give birth from it, she wanted to hurt me as only a child can be hurt by its mother.”

“No, she did not want to go to hospital. Yes, she would like a cup of tea. Only then did she begin to think rationally again.”

“I don’t want to adopt your ideas, I want to give birth to them.”

“It was a stretch to imagine that Barbara Walters might want to give it all up for Ed Couch, but Evelyn tried her hardest. Of course, even though she was not religious, it was a comfort to know that the Bible backed her up in being a doormat.”