“The gardener had a dread of small women; he'd always imagined them to have an anger disproportionate to their size.”

“for the disproportionate fear that the statistically and historically minimal group of women who were both angry and had hairy legs have inculcated both in their detractors and in their wannabe-successors, we should salute them as often as possible”

“The Hobbits are just rustic English people, made small in size because it reflects the generally small reach of their imagination.”

“the great lack of parity between husbands and wives has always been spawned by the disproportionate degree of self-sacrifice that women are willing to make on behalf of those they love.”

“Beneath these was a small silver-edged photo album, and Emma breathed in at the sight of the engraved names: Tommy and Emma. She found herself smiling; she'd known somehow that he would have been a Tommy. And if he'd never had the chance to become any of the other things she'd imagined for him, she was happy that at least he'd had that.”

“Women always seemed to bring the size they wished they were to the fitting room, rather than the size that would actually fit.”