Nothing succeeds, they say, like success. And certainly nothing fails like failure. – Margaret Drabble
Family life itself, that safest, most traditional, most approved of female choices, is not a sanctuary: It is, perpetually, a dangerous place. – Margaret Drabble
You learn to put your emotional luggage where it will do some good, instead of using it to shit on other people, or blow up aeroplanes. – Margaret Drabble
It is one of the secrets of Nature in its mood of mockery that fine weather lays heavier weight on the mind and hearts of the depressed and the inwardly tormented than does a really bad day with dark rain sniveling continuously and sympathetically from a dirty sky. – Muriel Spark, Territorial Rights, 1979