“Every persisting marriage is based on fear', said Peregrine. 'Fear is fundamental, you dig down in human nature and what's at the bottom? Mean spiteful cruel self-regarding fear, whether it makes you to put the foot in it or whether it makes you to cower...”

“People have obsessions and fears and passions which they don't admit to. I think every character is interesting and has extremes. It's the novelist privilege to see how odd everyone is.”

“A bad review is even less important than whether it is raining in Patagonia.”

“The most essential and fundamental aspect of culture is the study of literature, since this is an education in how to picture and understand human situations.”

“Happy is the civilization which can breed men accustomed from infancy to regard certain at least of the ego's natural activities as unthinkable.”

“Yes, of course, there's something fishy about describing people's feelings. You try hard to be accurate, but as soon as you start to define such and such a feeling, language lets you down. It's really a machine for making falsehoods. When we really speak the truth, words are insufficient. Almost everything except things like "pass the gravy" is a lie of a sort. And that being the case, I shall shut up. Oh, and... pass the gravy.”

“Dora was stunned by this information. She stopped. 'Do you mean' she said, 'that they're completely imprisoned in there?'Mrs. Marks laughed. 'Not imprisoned, my dear,' she said. 'They are there of their own free will. This is not a prison. It is on the contrary a place which it is very hard to get into, and only the strongest achieve it. Like Mary in the parable, they have chosen the better part.”