We would do better to make our judgments on society from a study of li — Beryl Bainbridge

"Being constantly with the children was like wearing a pair of shoes that were expensive and too small. She couldnt bear to throw them out, but they gave her blisters."

"I am of the firm belief that everybody could write books and I never understand why they dont. After all, everyone speaks. Once the grammar has been learnt it is simply talking on paper and in time learning what not to say."

"Everything else you grow out of, but you never recover from childhood."

"They were burning the stubbled fields and a great stain of smoke flooded the horizon. Nothing amiss here, nothing derelict, the roofs newly thatched, the hedges trimmed, the gardens bright with flowers."

"My husband, Austin Davies, taught John Lennon at . In fact, the night we separated, my husband had a party in our house to which the Beatles, John Lennon, —the one who died—and I can’t remember who else, came. The party went on for three days and nights; I moved out down the road to a friend’s house with the children, and later we divorced amicably. I never saw the Beatles again."

"She opens her case with an account of her own experience — she married three times and twice it was rotten — and goes on to list, throughout the ages, the devastation perpetuated in the name of love. ... I disagree with some of her book. She chronicles a horrific list of cruelties and repressions practiced in the name of love and she infers that it is the exception rather than the rule that people know how to love one another. She must be wrong. What about all those millions of human beings who, long before the welfare state, despite misery, hunger and disease, mostly managed to care for each other with charity and tenderness? I dont know why any of us should presume that were here to do anything very special, except procreate ..."