"Ah, I know," Bridget said. "For sure, you have the sixth sense." Mrs. Glover, wrestling with the plum pudding, snorted her disapproval. She was of the opinion that five senses were too many, let alone adding on another.

From the open French windows Sylvie watched Maurice erecting a makeshift tennis net, which mostly seemed to involve whacking everything in sight with a mallet. Small boys were a mystery to Sylvie. The satisfaction they gained from throwing sticks or stones for hours on end, the obsessive collection of inanimate objects, the brutal destruction of the fragile world around them, all seemed at odds with the men they were supposed to become.

Fox Corner - that's what we should call the house. No one else has a house with that name and shouldn't that be the point?'
'Really?' Hugh said doubtfully. 'It's a little whimsical, isn't it? It sounds like a children's story. The House at Fox Corner.'
'A little whimsy never hurt anyone.'
'Strictly speaking, though,' Hugh said, 'can a house be a corner? Isn't it at one?'
So this is marriage, Sylvie thought.

Gossip,” Mr. Pollock called it dismissively, but Gwendolen thought that was the word men gave to women’s conversation. Men talked in order to convey information or to ruminate on cricket scores and campaign statistics. Women, on the other hand, talked in an effort to understand the foibles of human behaviour. If men were to “gossip,” the world might be a better place. There would certainly be fewer wars.

The future was coming nearer, one relentless goose step after the next. Juliet could still remember when Hitler had seemed like a harmless clown. No one was amused now. (“The clowns are the dangerous ones,” Perry said.)