“A romantic man often feels more uplifted with two women than with one: his love seems to hit the ideal mark somewhere between two different faces.”

“Livvy noted there seemed some communal feeling between the married: any wife could be faintly rude to anyone else's husband.”

“If they should only be ill,' she said, 'there would be so many little things we could do for them. It does seem in a kind of a way an opportunity. I often think it is only when a man is ill that he...”

“Darling, I don't want you; I've got no place for you; I only want what you give. I don't want the whole of anyone.... What you want is the whole of me-isn't it, isn't it?-and the whole of me isn't ...”

“Karen, her elbows folded on the deck-rail, wanted to share with someone the pleasure in being alone: this is the paradox of any happy solitude. She had never landed at Cork, so this hill and that h...”

“And because no one answered or cared and a conversation went on without her she felt profoundly lonely, suspecting once more for herself a particular doom of exclusion. Something of the trees in th...”

“To wish to act like angels while we are still in this world is nothing but folly.”

“It isn't important to come out on top what matters is to be the one who comes out alive.”

“Expect nothing and life will be velvet.”

“If you expect great things of yourself and demand little of others, youll keep resentment far away.”

“There were two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations”

“One recipe for happiness is to have to sense of entitlement.' To this she added a star and noted at the bottom of the page: 'This is not a lesson I have ever been in a position to learn.”