“Ethel was calm but she felt excited inside. Bernard has a big house said Mr S. gazing at Ethel he is inclined to be rich.”

“I don't understand Ethel.
I don't, I don't really.
She's one of my very best friends,
Just about the best, nearly.
She's an awfully nice girl, Ethel is,
Dainty and refined,
I mean she'd never do or say
Anything unkind.
But get her inside a stadium
And she seems to go out of her mind.”

“Ethel and Bernard returned from their Honymoon with a son and hair a nice fat baby called Ignatius Bernard. They soon had six more children four boys and three girls and some of them were twins which was very exciting. The Earl only got two rarther sickly girls called Helen and Marie because the last one looked slightly french.”

“I shall wear my best black and my white alpacka coat to keep off the dust and flies replied Mr Salteena.
I shall put some red ruge on my face said Ethel because I am very pale owing to the drains in this house.”

“The word Styx got her [Mrs. O'Leary, the hellhound] excited. She probably thought I meant sticks. She jumped a few times,, and then calmed down enough for me to push Nico onto her back.”

“In 1966 there was a Scripture Rally in Trafalgar Square. A widower, Mr. Honick, went to it. He was about 63. A widow, Mrs. Rawnsley, also went. She was about 60. He went up to her and introduced himself. He was not much to look at. "He looked like a tramp," she said. "He has been picking up fag ends." They got on well enough, however, to exchange addresses. His was 36 Queen's Road, Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire. Hers was 74 Downton Avenue, Streatham Hill, London, S. W.2. Next day he went to her house with a gift for her. It was a rose wrapped in a newspaper. Afterwards their friendship grew apace. She was sorry for him, she said. She smartened him up with better clothes. She had him to meals. She went to his house: he went to hers. They wrote to one another in terms of endearment. We were not shown the letters, but counsel described them as love letters.”

“C'MON BERNARD! …DELIVER THE MILK AND GO TO THE NEXT HOUSE!!!”

“What is this terror? what is this ecstasy? he thought to himself. What is it that fills me with this extraordinary excitement?
It is Clarissa, he said.
For there she was.”

“Indeed, she often wondered if she were dead, or dying from the inside out, and that was the root of her calm, the reason she could surrender her character.”

“He said that if culture is a house, then language was the key to the front door; to all the rooms inside. Without it, he said, you ended up wayward, without a proper home or a legitimate identity.”