“I can walk. It’s just that I’m so rich I don’t need to.”

However bad the weather, Dad never drove to church because Mam thought the sacrament might make him incapable on the return journey.

We have fish and chips, which W. and I fetch from the shop in Settle market-place.

[B]riefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point.

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.

Polly: Education with socialists, it’s like sex, all right as long as you don’t have to pay for it.

A photograph on every mantlepiece. And all this mourning has veiled the truth. It’s not so much lest we forget, as lest we remember.

But then books, as I’m sure you know, seldom prompt a course of action.

Cloisters, ancient libraries … I was confusing learning with the smell of cold stone.

I dont know whether you’ve ever looked into a miner’s eyes for any length of time, that is. Because it is the loveliest blue you’ve ever seen.

What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren’t long enough for the reading she wanted to do.

Only when I mention it to W. does he explain Kestrel is now a lager. I imagine the future is going to contain an increasing number of incidents like this.

Why do we not care to acknowledge them? The cattle, the body count.

The nearest my parents came to alcohol was at Holy Communion and they utterly overestimated its effects.

Books, bread and butter, mashed potato – one finishes what’s on one’s plate. That’s always been my philosophy.

There are more microbes per person than the entire population of the world.

Philip Larkin used to cheer himself up by looking in the mirror and saying the line from Rebecca, ‘I am Mrs de Winter now!

You can’t just listen to The Smiths anymore. But then there are plenty of people that do only listen to five bands and six albums and that’s it.

I’m just a kid from Bronx who got lucky.

I just do whatever I do, and put it out there without tryin to cater to anybody. If you like it, you like it.

I spend time with people who are movers and shakers, and others who are just friends I really care for. Some of them are rich, some of them are poor. I couldn’t care less. I’m not a snob.

Just for the pleasure of a moment with you.

I am quite a spendthrift but just being careful because my family was not rich, was not a rich family.

If hearts could shatter, mine just did.

Good because I want you too. Now. Forever. Just you