“You must be ready to stay up late to follow it, to begin your conversation with the owl and end it with the cock.”

“If you have not died in the womb, or fallen prey to infant mortality, or to a young girl's greensickness, or to the dangers of childbirth, or if persistent pregnancies and perennial breeding have not worn you to a shadow, and you have not dwindled into a premature grave, then if war, sickness, accident or disease all keep their distance, your chances may be strong for a long life.”

“Your nakedness is the work of God the Creator. Let men admire it--and grow religious between your sheets.”

“Good, strong knickers underneath your nightgown will inhibit access to the fertile crescent.”

“History is not what happened but what you are told has happened, irrespective of what is true.”

“...that's the way to tell a true story from a made-up one. A made-up story always has a neat and tidy end. But true stories don't end, at least until their heroes and heroines die, and not then really because the things they did and didn't do, sometimes live on.”

“The best way to find out things, if you come to think of it, is not to ask questions at all. If you fire off a question, it is like firing off a gun; bang it goes, and everything takes flight and runs for shelter. But if you sit quite still and pretend not to be looking, all the little facts will come and peck round your feet, situations will venture forth from thickets and intentions will creep out and sun themselves on a stone; and if you are very patient, you will see and understand a great deal more than a man with a gun.”