Quotes from Olivia Manning

Looking at Sophie's well developed bosom, Harriet felt at a disadvantage. Perhaps Sophie's shape would not last. but it was enviable while it lasted.

Truth is a luxury. We can only afford it now and then.

Reflecting on the process of involvement and disenchantment which was marriage, she thought that one entered it unsuspecting and, unsuspecting, found one was trapped in it.

He expressed by his action his indifference to money but he was not, Harriet now knew, indifferent to the lack of it.

Their sense of likeness astonished them. It resembled magic. They felt themselves held in a spellbound condition which they feared to injure. Although she could not pin down any overt point of resemblance, Harriet at times imagined he was the person most like her in the world, her mirror image.

A man is made by his circumstances... If you want to change him, change his circumstances.

We have nothing to do but listen,' said Harriet, and she suddenly realized how happy she was here with Guy, come out of his seclusion to be a companion of this freedom that, having neither past nor future, was a lacuna in time; a gift of leisure that need only be accepted and enjoyed.

She was beginning to fear she had married a man whom she could not take seriously.

Those who give too much are always expected to give more, and blamed when they reach the point of refusal.

She married for adventure.

Inchcape, bending towards her, said: 'You are Helen of Troy. We ask only that you should be beautiful. Yours is the face that launched a thousand ships.

May I offer you my protection?' 'Good heavens, no,' she was amused: 'I don't need protection. I'm an Englishwoman.

But you must sacrifice your individuality,' Guy told her. 'It's nothing but egoism. You must unite with other right-thinking, self-abnegating people – then you can achieve anything.' The idea filled her with gloom.

They believed that the British Empire was the greatest force for good the world had ever known. They expected gratitude from the Egyptians and were pained to find themselves barely tolerated.

People will say anything to appear interesting.

The war had deprived people of free will. They must do what they were told.

But I don't imagine I exist to enhance your sense of superiority.

Jews are always strangers,' Harriet thought

Guy had a moral strength but it resembled one of those vast Victorian feats of engineering: impressive but out of place in the modern world.

Great fear can cast love out.

freedom is the knowledge of necessity and there is no wealth but life. When you understand that you understand everything.

As they say in the RAF: "Any prang you walk away from is a good prang".

Enjoy yourself while you've still got the chance.

Ignorance breeds fear. Tell people the truth. Trust them to keep their heads.