“But was anything in life, Anne asked herself wearily, like one's imagination of it?”

“Anne, are you killed?' shrieked Diana, throwing herself on her knees beside her friend. 'Oh, Anne, dear Anne, speak just one word to me and tell me if you're killed.”

“As Anne watched her, she could not help thinking of the age-old question every woman asks herself at some time or other: do I have to swallow it?”

“She imagined herself both queen and slave, dominatrix and victim. In her imagination she was making love with men of all skin colors--white, black, yellow--with homosexuals and beggars. She was anyone's, and anyone could do anything to her. She had one, two, three orgasms, one after another. She imagined everything she had never imagined before, and she gave herself to all that was most base and most pure.”

“Her [Mrs Croft's] manners were open, easy, and decided, like one who had no distrust of herself, and no doubts of what to do; without any approach to coarseness, however, or any want of good humour. Anne gave her credit, indeed, for feelings of great consideration towards herself, in all that related to Kellynch; and it pleased her.”

“We're going' Anne said firmly. So soon?' Percy pleaded. 'But stars come out at night.'Then they fade at dawn', Anne replied. 'This star needs to veil herself in darkness.”