“Nannie Bruce, a tall, gangling light-heavyweight with a suggestion in her appearance of a private in the Grenadiers dressed up to play the title role in Charley’s Aunt, was one of those doggedly faithful retainers who adhere to almost all old families like barnacles to the hulls of ships…She was as much a fixture as the stone lions or the funny smell in the attic.”

“She could smell the pages. She could almost taste the words as they stacked up around her.”

“Aunt Agatha is like an elephant—not so much to look at, for in appearance she resembles more a well-bred vulture, but because she never forgets.”

“Or light or dark, or short or tall,
She sets a springe to snare them all:
All's one to her—above her fan
She'd make sweet eyes at Caliban.”

“Joan Rivers telling Lauren Bacall her dress is all wrong is like Carrot Top telling Lenny Bruce he needs to get an edge.”

“When she bleeds the smells I know change colour. There is iron in her soul on those days. She smells like a gun.”

“A mother’s traditional role prepared her to love her family by being with the family she loved.”

“No doubt she was thinking, Who dressed this poor girl like a traffic light?”

“She strode like a grenadier, was strong and upright like an obelisk, had a beautiful face, a candid brow, pure eyes, and not a thought of her own in her head.”

“She quarreled with the nanny and accused her of brushing Misha's teeth sideways rather than up and down.”