“Men had no purpose on earth whereas women were gods walking unrecognized among them.”

“There were other war veterans in the neighborhood, visible thanks to their limps or missing limbs. All those unclaimed arms and legs lost in the fields of Flanders - Ursula imagined them pushing roots down into the mud and shoots up to the sky and growing once again into men. An army of men marching back for revenge.”

“This Jackson bloke was the ruddy Scarlet Pimpernel, here, there and everywhere, always one step ahead of Barry. And everywhere he went, women were disappearing.”

“Twittering just seemed to be people telling other people what they were doing--getting in the shower, making coffee. Who on earth wanted to know these things?...Babble and twitter. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

“Did God get out of bed one morning and draw back the curtains (Reggie's imaginary God led a very domesticated life) and think, 'A drowning in a hotel swimming pool, I fancy. We haven't had that one in a while.”

“You could guarantee a decent cup of coffee in Betty's, but it went beyond the decent coffee and the respectable girls (and women) who had been parcelled up some time in the 1930s and freshly unwrapped this morning. It was the way that everything was exactly right and fitting. And clean.”

“After Marlee was born they rented videos and fell asleep in front of them. Now, like so much else in Jackson's world, videos were obsolete.”