I always have beauty around me, for I have but to go to my piano, and trace one of the million designs that have been made by my masters. - Rebecca West

For one cannot serve the national spirit merely by getting a lump in the throat whenever one catches sight of the Union Jack, or by seeing red when a newspaper reports that some foreign power has acted aggressively towards England. These reactions bear the same relation to true love of country that a chance encounter between a man and a woman who meet in the street bears to a happy marriage.

is your home a good housemate?

(Happy Starts at Home: Getting the Life You Want by Changing the Space You've Got, Rebecca West)

There was also a daughter, very short, very plump, very gay, an amazing production for the Gregorievitches. It was as if two very serious authors had set out to collaborate and then had published a limerick.