“Seated opposite me in the railway carriage, the elderly lady in the fox-fur shawl was recalling some of the murders that she had committed over the years.”

“Nobody sees any one as he is, let alone an elderly lady sitting opposite a strange young man in a railway carriage. They see a whole--they see all sorts of things--they see themselves...”

“[Professor] Frank recalled my idle remark some years ago: 'Never pass up the opportunity to have sex or appear on television.' Advice I would never give today in the age of AIDS and its television equivalent Fox News.”

“Juliana's a year older than me, but she sometimes seems younger - mostly because she's the opposite of cynical and I'm the opposite of the opposite of cynical.”

“Jerusha leaned forward watching with curiosity - and a touch of wistfulness - the stream of carriages and automobiles that rolled out of the asylum gates. In imagination she followed first one equipage, then another, to the big houses dotted along the hillside. She pictured herself in a fur coat and a velvet hat trimmed with feathers leaning back in the seat and nonchalantly murmuring "Home" to the driver. But on the door-sill of her home the picture grew blurred.”

“She had more curves than a scenic railway”