If that was what she wanted to believe, why not let her? - P. D. James

What condemned a man [in a police investigation] was the inability to keep his mouth shut.

Marriage is both the most public and the most secret of institutions, its miseries as irritatingly insistent as a hacking cough, its private malaise less easily diagnosed. And nothing is so destructive as unhappiness to social life. No one wants to sit in embarrassed silence while his host and hostess demonstrate their mutual incompatibility and dislike.

Over the tea Enid said: "You know who controls this estate, don't you?"
"Yes, the children."
"The kids, the bloody kids. Complain to the police or the council and you get a brick through your window. Tell 'em off and like as not you get an earful of foul language and burning rags through the letter-box next day. And if they catch the little bastards and take them to youth court, what happens? Bloody nothing. They come home laughing. They're in gangs now by the time they're eight."
Of course they are, thought Kate. How else can they survive?