“Seducing Jordana was solid – she's got such high standards – but when I finally got the snogs in it was all worth it." I transform Jordana's blather into high-level discourse: Lounging in a post-osculatory glow, I knew that all those months of hard chivalry had been worthwhile.”

“Jordana is in the umpire's highchair.I walk under the rugby posts and on to the tennis courts, stopping a few metres in front of her, in the service box.Her legs are crossed.I wait for her to speak.'I have two special skills,' she says.She pulls a sheaf of papers from under her bum. I recognize the font and the text boxes. It's my pamphlet.'Blackmail,' she says.She holds up her Zippo in the other hand. I can tell that she has been practising this.'And pyromania.'I am impressed that Jordana knows this word.'Right,' I say.'I'm going to blackmail you, Ol.'I feel powerless. She is in a throne.'Okay,' I say.”

“Problems are like top trumps. I have a pretty good card: Adulterous Mum. But Jordana's is still better: Tumour Mother.”

“...both Tom and I adore detective stories. Isn't that so, Tom?" [Lady Brace]"Right!" agreed her husband...."But they've got to be proper detective stories. They've got to present a tricky, highly sophisticated problem, which you're given fair opportunity to solve.""And," amplified Virginia, "no saying they're psychological studies when the author can't write for beans.""Correct!" her husband agreed again. "Couldn't care less when you're supposed to get all excited as to whether the innocent man will be hanged or the innocent heroine will be seduced. Heroine ought to be seduced; what's she there for? The thing is the mystery. It's not worth reading if the mystery is simple or easy or no mystery at all.”

“I think...she said finally, "that all of us have got our ghosts.”

“I want the evening upon which we lose our collective virginities to be special. I'm no parthenologist but I suspect that Jordana's virginity is still intact. Her biological knowledge is minimal. She thinks that a perineum is to do with glacial moraine.”