“There!" she said, as she spread the tablecloth and put the sandwiches in a neat pile upon it. "Don't they look tempting? I always think that food tastes better outdoors."With that remark," remarked Kismine, "Jasmine enters the Middle class.”

“I think we've had rather too much dirt rather than not enough. That's not a prudish English remark, but a statement of saturation. These up-and-coming young men," she splutters. "Penelope Fitzgerald -- they think, 'Ah! Middle-aged lady with frizzy hair and a nice smile; she must be writing tastefully.' I say she's writing against taste, quite savagely. But they don't pick it up because they're brash young men poncing about, waving their blood and thunder and condoms!”

“[She] was a remarkable looking woman. Remarkable in that she wasn’t what most people would call beautiful. But she oozed a raw femaleness that I was certain made most women uncomfortable and sent men walking into walls. And when she smiled. Well. That was magic.”

“Sandwich outdoors isn’t a sandwich anymore. Tastes different than indoors, notice? Got more spice. Tastes like mint and pinesap. Does wonders for the appetite.”

“I have always heard it said that that is the rarest service, but the easiest to render. The remark struck me; I like to cite remarks that strike me.”

“Put a scoop of ice cream on it?” she asked. “And coffee. Everyone want coffee?” She looked inquiringly at us, smiling in a way that made me decidedly nervous, especially after that “I can get us a body” remark, and I nodded.Coffee? Why not?”