“She had her addictions and one of them was reading.”

“He had no illusions about his addiction to her. She had her fingers sunk firmly into his heart, and could do with it what she wished.”

“Another time, talking about his books, the baroness confessed that she had never bothered to read any of them, because she hardly ever read 'difficult' or 'dark' novels like the ones he wrote. With the years, too, this habit had grown entrenched, and once she turned seventy the scope of her reading was restricted to fashion or news magazines.”

“Clear now that she was as dependent as any addict on the drug of the war. He had underestimated the damage in her.”

“Daisy had known the novel was silly even as she had read it, but that had not detracted one bit from her enjoyment.”

“She was one of the few stay-at-home moms in Ramsey Hill and was famously averse to speaking well of herself or ill of anybody else. She said that she expected to be “beheaded” someday by one of the windows whose sash chains she’d replaced. Her children were “probably” dying of trichinosis from pork she’d undercooked. She wondered if her “addiction” to paint-stripper fumes might be related to her “never” reading books anymore. She confided that she’d been “forbidden” to fertilize Walter’s flowers after what had happened “last time.”