“In the end I sort of though we created a companion who was so alive and dynamic and so wedded to the doctor that you’d need a whole universe to contain her in. The only way to get rid of her is to send her into a parallel world from which she can never return; otherwise she would stay with the doctor forever.”

“Woolf turned her back on a number of tokens of her rising eminence in the 1930s, including an offer of the Companion of Honour award, an invitation from Cambridge University to give the Clark lectures, and honorary doctorate degrees from Manchester University and Liverpool University.‘It is an utterly corrupt society,’ she wrote in her diary, ‘. . . & I will take nothing that it can give me”

“The household was pervaded by this atmosphere of a calm adult woman and a man who gave into animal impulses. She reported to him in great detail what her analyst ... said about his binges and his hostility; she used Charley's money to pay Dr. Andrews to catalog his abnormalities. And of course Charley never heard anything directly from the doctor; he had no way of keeping her from reporting what served her and holding back what did not. The doctor, too, had no way of getting to the truth of what she told him; no doubt she only gave him the facts that suited her picture, so that the doctor's picture of Charley was based on what she wanted him to know. By the time she had edited both going and coming there was little of it outside her control.”

“I need to be gone before she gets up. Seeing her will only make it harder to stay away from her. A man can only be pushed so far before he gives in, regardless of the consequences.”

“The Doctor: Hello, I've come to see the Lord Mayor.Idris Hopper: Have you got an appointment?The Doctor: No, just an old friend passing by, bit of a surprise. Can't wait to see her face!Idris Hopper: Well, she's just having a cup of tea.The Doctor: Just go in there and tell her "the Doctor" would like to see her.Idris Hopper: "The Doctor" who?The Doctor: Just "The Doctor". Tell her exactly that, "The Doctor".Idris Hopper: Hang on a tic.[Idris goes inside. There is the sound of a teacup smashing and Idris returns.]Idris Hopper: The Lord Mayor says "thank you f-for popping by." She'd love to have a chat, but, um, she's up to her eyes in paperwork. Perhaps you would like to make an appointment for next week...The Doctor: [happily] She's climbing out the window, isn't she?Idris Hopper: Yes, she is.”

“On the whole she fares better with the men, if they can work their way past the awkward preliminaries; if they can avoid calling her "little lady," or saying they weren't expecting her to be so feminine, by which they mean short. Though only the most doddering ones do that any more. If she weren't so tiny, though, she'd never get away with it. If she were six feet tall and built like a blockhouse; if she had hips. Then she'd be threatening, then she'd be an Amazon. It's the incongruity that grants her permission. A breath would blow you away, they beam down at her silently. You wish, thinks Tony, smiling up. Many have blown.”