"Anyone who picks up a Compton-Burnett finds it very hard not to put it down."

“As regards plots I find real life no help at all. Real life seems to have no plots.”

“The most original novelist now writing in English.”

“In the age of the concentration camp, when from 1935 to 1947 or so, she wrote her very best novels, no writer did more to illumine the springs of human cruelty, suffering and bravery.”

“Well, of course, people are only human," said Dudley to his brother, as they walked to the house behind the women. "But it really does not seem much for them to be.”

“Time has too much credit," said Bridget. "I never agree with the compliments paid to it. It is not a great healer. It is an indifferent and perfunctory one. Sometimes it does not heal at all. And sometimes when it seems to, no healing has been necessary.”

“Appearances are not held to be a clue to the truth," said his cousin. "But we seem to have no other.”