The Glasgow accent was so strong you could have built a bridge with it and known it would outlast the civilization that spawned it

I don't think of myself as Scottish or lesbian when I sit down and write. I am glad I have broken out of that limited audience.

You can't prove a negative. I can't prove there are no such thing as vampires any more than you can prove you're not a lesbian.

Father, everybody has mugs these days. It's not a sign of debauchery and disrepute to drink tea from a mug.

Admittedly, they [(places in novels)] didn't all have such ridiculous names as the ones in the Piddle Valley where her father's group of parishes was centered. It would have been hard to make credible a romantic fiction set in Farleigh Piddle, Middle Piddle, Nether Piddle and Piddle Dummer.

It was a source of constant disappointment to Catherine Morland that her life did not more closely resemble her books. Or rather, that the books in which she found its likeness were so unexciting.