“He had never imagined so clearly the consequences of mailing a letter—the impossibility of retrieving it from the iron mouth of the box; the inevitability if its steady progress through the postal system; the passing from bag to bag and postman to postman until a lone man in a van pulls up to the door and pushes a small pile through the letterbox. It seemed suddenly horrible that one's words could not be taken back, one's thoughts allowed none of the remediation of speaking face to face.”

“At our age, surely there are better things to sustain us, to sustain a marriage, than the brief flame of passion?" ..."You are mistaken, Ernest," she said at last. "There is only the passionate spark. Without it, two people living together may be lonelier than if they lived quite alone.”

“Her favourite summer memories were not of events themselves, of picnics, sea bathing, tennis afternoons and cricket matches, but of watching Hugh and Daniel enjoying them and locking into memory the delight in their faces and their open laughter.”

“They sat a moment in embrace of silent mutual comfort, which was, she often thought, the reward of those long married.”

“My parents told me to marry for money,' said her husband. 'But I chose the love of a strong woman.''And look what trouble I turned out to be,' she said.”

“Most of all I remember that what begins with drums and fife, flags and bunting, becomes too swiftly a long and grey winter of the spirit.”

“War does have a way of interfering with one's most closely held desires.”

“He had never imagined so clearly the consequences of mailing a letter—the impossibility of retrieving it from the iron mouth of the box; the inevitability if its steady progress through the postal system; the passing from bag to bag and postman to postman until a lone man in a van pulls up to the door and pushes a small pile through the letterbox. It seemed suddenly horrible that one's words could not be taken back, one's thoughts allowed none of the remediation of speaking face to face.”

“Only sometimes when we pick and choose among the rules we discover later that we have set aside something precious in the process.”

“Look, the truth belongs to the guy who's best at sticking to his story,' said Ferguson.”

“Memories were like tomb paintings, thought the Major, the colors still vivid no matter how many layers of mud and sand time deposited. Scrape at them and they come up all red and blazing.”