“While she lay there with these old worn thoughts coming obediently into her mind, called there by habit and the familiar quiet of early morning, she was aware that at the back of her mind there was another thought that was not at all stale, but so fresh that it was nearly a feeling, with all a feeling's delicious power to kill thought.”

“Like all really strong-minded women, on whom everybody flops, she adored being bossed about. It was so restful.”

“Nature is all very well in her place, but she must not be allowed to make things untidy.”

“On the whole, Flora liked it better when they were silent, though it did rather give her the feeling that she was acting in one of the less cheerful German highbrow films.”

“. . . And she said it was a pity, because my father was so “keen”, and what did I care about?So I said, well, I was not quite sure, but on the whole I thought I liked having everything very tidy and calm all around me, and not being bothered to do things, and laughing at the kind of joke other people didn’t think at all funny, and going for country walks, and not being asked to express opinions about things (like love, and isn’t so-and-so peculiar?). So then she said, oh, well, didn’t I think I could try to be a little less slack, because of Father, and I said no, I was I afraid I couldn’t; and after that she left me alone. But all the others still said I was no good.”

“Here was an occasion, she thought, for indulging in that deliberate rudeness which only persons with habitually good manners have the right to commit...”

“One of the disadvantages of almost universal education was the fact that all kinds of persons acquired a familiarity with one's favorite writers. It gave one a curious feeling; it was like seeing a drunken stranger wrapped in one's dressing gown.”