Gwen Raverat quotes:

I have defined Ladies as people who did not do things themselves.

the chief thing I learnt at school was how to tell lies.

The first religious experience that I can remember is getting under the nursery table to pray that the dancing mistress might be dead before we got to the Dancing Class.

You can have no idea, if you have not tried, how difficult it is to find out anything whatever from an encyclopedia, unless you know all about it already ...

you may take it from me, that however hard you try - or don't try; whatever you do - or don't do; for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; every way and every day: the parent is always wrong. So it is no good bothering about it. When the little pests grow up they will certainly tell you exactly what you did wrong in their case. But never mind; they will be just as wrong themselves in their turn.