“As it is I'm a dated novelist, whom hardly anybody reads, or if they do, most of them don't understand what I am on about. Certainly I wish I had never written Voss, which is going to be everybody's albatross.”

“I am compelled into this country.”

“Superficially my war was a comfortable exercise in futility carried out in a grand Scottish hotel amongst the bridge players and swillers of easy-come-by whisky. My chest got me out of active service and into guilt, as I wrote two, or is it three of the novels for which I am now acclaimed.”

“She had begun to read in the beginning as a protection from the frightening and unpleasant things. She continued because, apart from the story, literature brought with it a kind of gentility for which she craved.”

“Where have you been, Theodora?," Mrs Goodman asked."Walking, Mother.""And whom did you see?"Mrs Goodman flung her grammar like a stone."I did not see a cat," said Theodora.Mrs Goodman looked at her daughter, who giggled before she left the room.”

“I expect we are all jealous of the women in their past, but how much less exciting if the women had not kept the bed warm.”

“His legend will be written down, eventually, by those who are troubled by it.”